But bumps on the superhighway may make the wait longer.

Dev Nadkarni

Hope may be round the corner for Fiji's Internet services consumersfrustrated with snail-paced access speeds, dropping throughputs, linebreaks, and other assorted woes. Come May, the country's surfers couldbe whooshing the web at broadband speeds, downloading songs, even movieclips, at blitzing speeds. For, offering wireless broadbandconnectivity is I-Pac Communications Fiji Limited, a joint venturebetween Australian company I-Pac and Fiji's leading broadcasterCommunications Fiji Media (CFM).

The joint venture announced the service last month at a pressconference in Suva. A licence for operating the service had been issuedto the company as long ago as in 2001 by the ministry of information,communications and media relations.

The service provider's technology is wireless throughout, thuscompletely independent of the telecom network. From sourcing itsbandwidth from FINTEL to distributing the service to homes, offices andpeople on the go, the technology is wireless.

"Access speeds begin at 256 kbps (kilo bits per second) and go up to 1m (mega) bps," says John Pollock, I-Pac's executive chairman. Thiswould be a bonanza for most users, as presently, dial up customers canhope to get connected at a top speed of 56 kbps, though the averagerarely exceeds 33. Users having to share a connection on networks arefar worse off.

Besides, the advantages of a wireless connection are obvious. Consumerscan be connected to the network at any place where the wireless networkexists. To begin with, this means places around the Suva-Nausori-Lamibelt, Nadi, Lautoka and parts of the Coral Coast -an area thatcomprises most of urban Fiji.

CFM's radio towers at strategic locations on Viti Levu will beinstrumental in providing the wireless network. Consumers wishing toget on to the service will however have to buy some hardware -a specialmodem whose base version is expected to cost around F$ 300 (versionswith hub-capabilities will cost higher). CFM managing director WilliamParkinson says these modems will be made available through consumerelectronics stores nationwide.

I-Pac's licence covering radio frequencies of 2.3 to 2.4 and 3.4 to 3.5GHz (giga Hertz) matches with that of Sydney's wireless servicesprovider Unwired, thereby enabling Fijian customers to connect to theAustralian network seamlessly whenever they visit Sydney and forUnwired's customers to do so when they are in Fiji. This is a majorselling point for tourists, says Pollock. Similar wireless networksexist in New Zealand and are being introduced all over the world.

A connection to the web is just one facility that the service offers.It also has capabilities of voice transmission and delivering a pay TVchannel on an Internet Protocol (IP) platform. But Pollock is vary. "Wewill not provide voice transmission services," he says. "And not pay TVat least for some time now." I-Pac's guarded approach to questions ontelephony and television are understandable. For both voice telephonyand television are holy cows in Fiji and anything concerning the twoneed to be dealt with carefully.

Already, the announcement of the service has caused a stir that couldgrow into a full-blown controversy in the coming months complete withlegal wrangles. Telecom Fiji has gone on record in the past that itcould not recognize any licence that allows provision of Internetservices to parties other than its subsidiary Connect, thanks to theexclusive right to terminate all calls within Fiji. The company saysits has legal opinion that holds that this exclusive right precludesany other entity providing such a service.

In fact, there are said to be six or seven ISP aspirants whoseapplications are pending for this very reason. Telecom Fiji has its ownreasons for holding on to exclusivity pending deregulation and theabsence of any roadmap and an interim plan and of course the deadlockon its tariff rebalancing proposals (see accompanying story on tariffrebalancing).

But the new wireless entity claims to provide Internet servicescompletely independent of the telecom network, so the question ofinterconnection does not seem to arise, which is perhaps the reason thecompany was given a licence to operate by the communications ministryin the first place.

When contacted for his reaction to the new wireless provider'sannouncement, Lionel Yee, chairman of Amalgamated Telecom Holdings(ATH), the holding company that owns Telecom Fiji and its subsidiaryConnect, did not comment, saying that a statement would soon bereleased by Telecom Fiji.

In reply to queries from Islands Business, Telecom Fiji publicrelations manager Salote Uluinaceva issued a statement saying: "Thetelecommunications industry is currently a strictly regulated market.This is a licence issue and we are reserving our position. Our lawyersare currently examining the issue. There should be an agreed road mapto a deregulated market."

In the months preceding the December announcement, the ministry ofcommunications had apparently tried to sort matters out betweenI-Pac/CFM and ATH concerning the conflicting perceptions of exclusivityand one might have thought the matter had been resolved. Telecom'scryptic statement seems to point the other way, though.

Undeterred, Pollock and Parkinson are going ahead with their plans.Technical testing would progress in the coming months and a testservice would be up by April, says Pollock. From a business standpoint,the company plans to cash-in on the pent-up demand for broadband accessin the country and expect a part of the approximately 10,000 dial-upcustomers will switch allegiance. The company is still working out itspricing plans. As for bandwidth, there seems to be plenty to spare: ofthe 32 Mbps available from FINTEL in Fiji, only 18 Mbps is in use.

For Fiji, broadband may well be round the corner. But it looks likethere will be a few bureaucratic and legal bumps to negotiate on thesuperhighway before surfers can really see themselves whooshing off.