Dionisia Tabureguci
A shot or two in the foot later, the Papua New Guinea government now seems a little wiser and better calculated in its moves to open up its telecommunication industry, although its gazetted decision last October on how it will now deregulate the PNG telecom market was not a very popular announcement and attracted cutting criticisms locally. The presence of Digicel PNG in the market as a mobile network operator and service provider is going to be a sticky issue.

The government could have well avoided this situation if it had followed the recommendations in a report by the Ethan Group of Australia, engaged by the government’s ICT taskforce in 2006 to assess the country’s ICT sector and help develop a National ICT Policy. The inter-agency task force was a result of the PNG cabinet’s approval in 2005 of a draft National Information Communication Technology Policy Framework, which sets the groundwork for the formulation of the new National ICT Policy.

At around this time too, the PNG government moved to introduce competition in the mobile market by giving the go-ahead to the Independent Commerce and Consumer Commission (ICCC) to issue two new mobile operator licenses in 2007, the year in which the license of the incumbent carrier Telikom PNG would expire.

Ignoring the recommendation in the Ethan Report to delay mobile competition by 18 to 24 months or PNG Telikom gets minced in what was expected to be state-of-the-art tech laced new competitors, the PNG government generally lapsed on the issue until the ICCC, acting upon the earlier government's directive, issued two new mobile licenses in July last year to Digicel PNG and Dawamiba PNG (comprising Indonesia-based Greencom).

While that effectively blew up dust in PNG’s telecom industry as Digicel PNG wasted no time in rolling out its services leaving PNG Telikom reeling in a sapping double dose of heavy cash-flagging competition and a tired infrastructure, the announcement finally by the PNG government last May of its national ICT policy and a telecommunications deregulation bueprint became a concern for many. Few in PNG were able to obtain copies of these documents, which have only recently been made available by the ICCC. But it became known that instead of opening the mobile market right away, the industry was going to be split into two—a network side, which would be a monopoly (NetCo) and a service side which would be open to competition (ServCo).

Last October, government finally gazetted its intention to tweak its policy on telecommunication to reflect its now enlightened state of mind: that while it recognised the importance of universal access of Papua New Guineans to telecommunication services and that this could be achieved by an efficient and competitive market environment, opening up was not going to be an overnight thing but a “staged introduction of competition in all sectors”.

It is been seen by some sections of the PNG community as a stealthy move of protectionism by the government, another excuse to delay the benefits that the country is already missing out on in this rapidly evolving communication age, one of which is competitive communication prices that consumers were already enjoying since Digicel PNG opened its doors to customers.

And all for the sake of ensuring the incumbent Telikom PNG, which has had a 52-year presence in the marketplace yet still operating on very old equipment, could be given time to shape up technology-wise. More of concern to those who oppose this re-stated government policy direction is that in order to bring about the NetCo/ServCo model, as would happen in Phase One of the two-phased process, Digicel and Greencomm would have to forfeit their mobile network operator licenses and instead, they would be issued with service reseller licenses (become ServCos).Telikom PNG Ltd, on the other hand, would be the sole operator of all existing networks (become Telikom NetCo).

“It is still the intent of some in government to subvert the existing arrangements with Digicel and Greencomm so that they are unable to operate as they are currently doing or wish to do so,” said David Conn, general manager of the Port Moresby Chamber of Commerce and Industry (POMCCI).

Conn called on all stakeholders to engage “in an open and constructive debate so that PNG gets the best information, communication and technology environment suited to promoting business and social development in the wider community”.

Even the ICCC labelled the refined policy as one “that will cause a great deal of difficulty—our views have not been accommodated” and uttered disclaimers to it alongside acknowledging that it is obliged by law to carry out government instructions.

“We are obliged to implement government policy if it has been properly conveyed to us—they have done this despite our opposition on the content. The Minister (of Communication) does not have the authority to issue any licenses unless there are legislative changes. But that’s still pending. And we can issue any new licenses because we have now been formally advised of the new government policy. It is now up to the lobby groups to put more pressure on parliamentarians not to pass any legislations,” ICCC said in a correspondence with POMCCI.

Concerns also came from the academia.“An important dimension to the ICT policy is the issue of opportunity costs, which relate to the value of alternative uses of funds that would be spent on implementing the current ICT policy, particularly infrastructure costs for Telikom NetCo,” wrote Ogis Sanida, in a paper titled “ICT Policy: The Need For Review”, which was published last October.

Sanida is a research fellow and acting Head of Economics Studies Division at PNG’s National Research Institute. “If the cost of building the mobile network infrastructure is left to the retail service companies to bear—as would be the case if competition is allowed in both the wholesale and retail sectors—then the government would make savings, which can be better utilised elsewhere. This is a desirable situation, and a revised ICT policy needs to reflect this situation.

However, if the ICT policy is implemented in its present form, then the people will lose because funds that could have been used on basic public services and needs, such as health, education and transportation infrastructure, will be used on projects which the private sector mobile phone companies would willingly fund, because they have the business incentive to do so,” Sanida wrote.

He further called on the revised ICT policy to be withdrawn and reviewed “in a process that involves industry-wide, transparent consultation, so that it reflects the interests and views of all stakeholders”. In particular, Sanida voiced a concern that has been expressed by noting that: “If Telikom NetCo, as a monopoly, inherits the problems of the current Telikom PNG Ltd, such as a deficient infrastructure, and an inefficient, costly service, as has been the norm for the past 52 years, then the ability of Telikom NetCo to deliver is seriously in doubt. If past performance is anything to go by, this situation seems highly likely to prevail.”

The smoke still billows in PNG on this issue as, according to the Gazettal Notice, the National Executive Council has directed that Phase One of the National ICT policy begin no later than February 14, 2008. In its 2008 National Budget, the PNG allocated K20 million to the implementation of the National ICT Policy.

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PICs happy with C-Band decision

 
While efforts to preserve the C-Band for the sole purpose of satellite transmission were not fully successful at the International Telecommunication Union’s World Radio Communication Conference (WCR-07) last November, Pacific members of the Pacific Islands Telecommunication Association (PITA) were happy the battle lost was at least not a loss for them.

“Yes, we lost out the extended C-Band which the ITU has designated to IMT (International Mobile Telecommunication) networks but we are at least happy that whole part of the C-Band itself was kept,” said Cook Islands Telecom CEO, Stuart Davies.

“Had the ITU also touched the C-Band, it would have been disastrous for Pacific islands countries because our communication in this region is being carried out mainly via satellite (that operate on C-band). But losing the extended C-Band will not affect us because we hardly use it anyway,” Davies said.

WRC-07 had deliberated at length over what frequency bands to assign to IMTs, better known as IMT-2000, which is the ITU’s global standard for the third generation (3G) wireless communications technologies that are expected to emerge now and beyond as the world moves towards high speed data-based communication.

An ITU study on this had identified, among others, radio frequencies in C-Band (3.4 to 4.2 GHz) as one of the “candidate bands” for IMTs, a revelation that was vehemently opposed at WCR-07 by satellite operators who traditionally use C-Band for transmission purposes.

They argued that bringing IMT wireless networks to also sit on this frequency range would cause interference and disrupt their transmissions, an argument backed by the support of the Pacific’s PITA members. “We made an effort to get a common proposal at the Asia-Pacific Telecommunity (APT) meeting in Korea last October. We achieved that common proposal which was then taken to the November WCR-07,” said Davies.