Tongans embrace digital mobile phones [1]
Tuesday, October 12, 2004 - 13:15. Updated on Wednesday, May 7, 2014 - 10:57.
The Tonga Communication Corporation had connected 9,000 subscribers to its U-Call mobile telephone service by October 2004.
This includes 800 subscribers in Vava‘u and and 300 in Ha‘apai and the rest in Tongatapu.
Timote Katoanga, Deputy Manager for TCC said that this was a tremendous jump from 2,000 U-Call subscribers recorded in the previous three months.
He said it was evident that the Tongan people were embracing the fast pace of digital mobile telecommunication since TCC's introduction of the GSM 900 mobile system in December 2001.
Timote said that Tonga joins the second generation of digital wireless cellular phones, whereby we can call and receive, sort or text messages and receive voicemail. Tonga had come a long way since the late 1980's when the then Tonga Telecommunications Corporation introduced the first analog transmission network, and only two hundred subscribers were recorded.
Timote believed that their subscribers had increased dramatically in the last three months because they improved the quality of their mobile service by improving their network coverage and increasing their customer lines.
"Customers nowadays are attracted more to a good quality network and service that is guaranteed," said Timote.
In November and December Tonga Communication Corporation will also be introducing two new services to its U-Call mobile system. They will adopt the post paid system alongside the existing pre paid call. This will allow U-Call customers to call unlimited for a limited period of a month with monthly billing.
Then in December Timote said they would also be introducing the International Roaming system. This system will allow U-Call subscribers to call and receive phone calls through their U-CAll mobile from Tonga if they are in overseas countries. To begin with they are targetting the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Tahiti and Fiji.
Timote said that the current increase of mobile subscribers had not affected their number of fixed line subscribers. Since August they had a total of 13,000 fixed line subscribers for Tonga, which showed that people still want to have phones at home.
Meanwhile, TCCs competitor in the mobile and weireless communications market, Tonfon, is to begin upgrading and expanding its telephone wireless network in November.
The project is said to provide a perfect coverage and will bring reliable, rich valued services such as fax, data, PABX, broadcasting short message, voice mailbox amongst other things with a capacity to serve 50,000 subscribers.
In August of this year the Chairman of Shoreline Communication Ltd., Crown Prince Tupouto...a signed a multi million dollar supply contract with Huawei Technologies of China for the upgrading and the expanding of its wireless telephone network. The project is expected to be completed by December 25.