Wiring-up Nuku‘alofa for thousands waiting for telephones [1]
Saturday, June 30, 2001 - 10:00. Updated on Friday, January 29, 2016 - 17:16.
From Matangi Tonga Magazine, Vol. 16, no. 1, June 2001.
By Pesi Fonua.
Thousands of people are waiting for telephones in Nuku‘alofa and to get them all on line quickly means for the most part going wireless, and putting in some high tech cables for a small area of the Nuku‘alofa business centre.
It is a new and growing market, driven by new software and hardware being introduced almost daily. The thinking is that whoever gets a bigger share of the Nuku‘alofa market of about 21,400 people will have a fair chance of taking a bigger share of the Tongatapu market (population 66,577) and eventually the whole of Tonga with its more widely-spread population of 97,446.
TCC
The beginning of July is a date both the Tonga Communications Corporation, and Tonfön have set for the introduction of their newest products and services to Tonga. The TCC will launch its new GSM base 2.5G cell phone, a product which will enable the user to check e-mail, and send voice messages. The new 2.5G will advance the TCC mobile telephone service to within reach of the latest service in the world called 3G, and will also offer a solution to the perennial problem of the thousands of people who are still waiting for a telephone connection. The existing mobile telephone service now run by TCC was introduced in 1995, it is old and when you really need it, does not work. In addition to the new mobile telephone service, the TCC will also upgrade its satellite capabilities to the outer islands to increase its number of internet users (see New GSM cell phones to cut down demand for lines [2]).
Tonfön
By July, Tonfön plans to introduce into Nuku‘alofa the latest in information technology in the form of a fibre optic cable to serve the Nuku‘alofa business centre, and a wireless service for the whole of the Nuku‘alofa area. Tonfön’s fibre optic and wireless systems will also have a cell phone capability. Soane Ramanlal of Tonfön said that their cell phone capability would eventually be 3G, but they would start off with 2.5G. Soane said that the services that they will be offering would enable everyone in the capital to have as many telephones as they would like to have. After establishing its services in Nuku’alofa Tonfön planned to expand to the rest of Tongatapu, and onward to the whole of Tonga (see page 16).
Satellites
Tonga’s embracing of the world of Information Technology as it enters the 21st century is the result of a fascination with satellite communications during the past 30 years.
Tonga began using satellite communication in 1978 when the government signed a Franchise Agreement with Cable and Wireless plc, allowing the foreign company to connect Tonga to the rest of the world through its satellite network, while the domestic telephone service was operated by the government’s own Tonga Telecommunications Commission.
About the same time, during the late 1980s Tonga became interested in the registering of orbital slots in space, and their success was followed by the establishment of a private company TongaSat in 1988, to market Tonga’s orbital slots. All of these ventures have helped to enlighten Tongans about the importance of satellite communications, space rights, and Information Technology.
Ten years after the first Franchise Agreement was signed with Cable and Wireless plc, the agreement was extended for another 13 years in order to extend satellite communications to the outer island groups of Vava‘u and Ha‘apai. This Franchise Agreement expired at the end of June 2000 when government decided that it would be best for one company, owned by government, with possibly a foreign shareholder, to take over the running of the domestic and the international service. That company, the Tonga Communications Corporation was finally established in February 2001, and at the moment it is fully owned by government.
Inheritance
The TCC was established with the conviction that one telephone company, which inherited the assets and services of both the Cable and Wireless plc and the Tonga Telecommunications Commission, would be able to cater for the needs of the whole of Tonga. However, some people disagree with the government approach of creating a monopoly, and believe that a second carrier should be given a licence to compete with TCC for the benefit of users. Supporters of the one company theory argue that Tonga is too small for two companies, while the others argue that a lack of competition has been the main drawback to development in this country.
The second telephone company, and the competition that people were talking about, became a reality before the arrival of 2000, when HRH Crown Prince Tupouto‘a announced (see Matangi Tonga December 1999) that he was applying for a second licence, to introduce a wireless high-speed digital signal, which could carry telephone, internet and television.
The system that Tupouto‘a’s company is about to introduce represents the cutting edge of Information Technology, it will enable Tongans to access the information super highway and be part of whatever is going on in the rest of the world. The spirit of competition that it introduces is expected to further enhance the development of information technology in this country (see Interview page 18).
The competition that is about to take place in telecommunications and Information Technology is within line with the government’s Strategic Development Plan Seven for 2001-2003 where the national vision has been spelled out: “Information Technology will be used to ensure that the right information is available at the right time to the right person for the least cost.”
The competition that will take place between the two telephone companies and the expected reduction in internet access costs to the consumer will be a booster to the development and the use of computers and information technology in Tonga. Computer studies in the schools has been stepped up, along with the computerisation of the private sector, and of various government ministries.