From Matangi Tonga Magazine, Vol. 16, no. 1, June 2001.

The excitement over the development of Tonga’s telecommunications is related to three important decisions that were made by government before the turn of the century.

These were the establishment of the Tonga Communications Corporation to run both the international and domestic telephone service.

The establishment of a Department of Communications to regulate all communication services in the country.

The issuing of a licence to a second carrier, Tonfön to compete with TCC.

These decisions  set the tempo for the future development of telecommunications and information technology in this country.

Old structures

The taking over by the TCC of the Cable and Wireless plc Tonga service and the Tonga Telecom has its advantages and disadvantages. While it has the advantages of inheriting two well-established operations, it faces the disadvantages of using old structures, old practices and problems that have to be dealt with in order to be able to compete in this new age of information technology.

Since the final transferring of properties and staff to TCC on February 5 this year, a number of drastic measures have had to be taken. The offering of redundancy payments totalling of $80,000 to 51 employees was a heart wrenching exercise, so was the closure of the Mechanical and the Carpentry Divisions that it inherited from the Tonga Telecommunications Commission, while the Coastal Watch Service was handed over to the Ministry of Marine.

On a more positive side of things voluntary redundancy was encouraged and some technicians and engineers were encouraged to move out and establish their own businesses, doing services that used to be offered by the former Tonga Telecom, such as installation of office equipment and telephones.

The chief engineer of the TCC, Timote Katoanga said that the objective of all the reshuffling was to enable TCC to be more focused on what it does best, “providing internet connections, cell phones, fixed telephones and making sure that we are offering a quality service nationally and internationally.”

Cellular phones

Timote said that their immediate move was to establish a GSM cellular telephone service, “it will not be a 3G, but a 2.5G with an e-mail and telephone capability. We are currently under negotiation with a company to come and establish this service. Phase one for Tongatapu (was to be operational by March but now July) to be followed by Vava‘u and then Ha‘apai.” Timote said that they were hoping to attract 1500 to 2000 subscribers to the new cell phone service. “The demand for line phones is about 5000, and the new cell phone should cut down the demand for new telephone lines.”

The other area that the TCC is currently working on is to increase its number of Internet subscribers. “We would like to further improve the Internet service here in Tongatapu and to enlarge the pipe that is running from here to the USA. We also would like to increase the Internet capabilities of Vava‘u and Ha‘apai to be the same as Tongatapu.” Timote said that at the moment they had about 600 subscribers, “and that is not our full capacity, but only the people with computers. We are looking at a figure of 1000.”

Teaching

Timote said that the introducing of the Information Technology to the public and getting them to use the new technology involved the government, the private sector and the telephone companies. “An example of how all these parties work together is a scheme was introduced in Jordan where they made it compulsory for the teaching of English and computer studies in the schools. It means that carriers like ourselves go ahead and develop the technology while government forges ahead with the teaching of the public to become computer-literate and to know how to use computers, which are brought into the country by the private sector.”

Taking into account that the days of the monopoly by TCC are numbered because of the entry of the second carrier, Tonfön, Timote said they were tapping into the latest in technology. “The most important factor is for the customers to be able to access the service, whether it is fixed or wireless. Our priority is to provide an efficient service, and to stay in touch with the technology and to make it accessible to as many people as it is possible. The whole of Tonga is now using digital telephones.

“We have to try and keep up with the technology, and secondly the market demand, what they can afford. As far as we are concerned we want to lead, but to balance it with what the market can financially support.

“We are offering a special rate of $300 a month of unlimited access to the Internet for schools and we are also looking at offering a cheaper rate at certain times of the day, maybe Sunday night. Small population is still a problem with regards to the ushering in of the new technology, because even if we want to keep up with the latest in technology but at the same time it has to be customer based so that our investment is being utilised. The market size still plays a very important role. We can’t compare ourselves with the kind of service available to a very high population of say 5 million where there is economy of scale,” he said.