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

The Millennium wake-up call for Tonga came at the end of 1999 when Crown Prince Tupouto'a announced that he was bidding for a licence to provide a second telephone carrier, and that he was going to introduce wireless technology where, "the customer should be able to buy a computer, plug it in, pull out an aerial and make a phone call. At the same time, he should be able to swipe a card on the computer, establish an account and switch to his favourite TCV channel while he is talking on the phone."

A lot of work has been done since then to introduce wireless technology to Tonga, but finally a date has been set for July 2 when the newly formed Tonfön, a trade name owned by Shoreline Communications, will launch its telephone system in Nuku‘alofa. Tonfön also has a fibre optic cable system on the drawing board.

Soane Ramanlal of Tonfön said that their plan was that by July the whole of Nuku‘alofa would have access wireless and the central business area to both wireless and fibre optic. “Fibre will be ideal for businesses and banks that need big bandwidth, but they can also have wireless, ” he said.

“HRH’s vision is for Tonga to be in the forefront of information technology, it will be good for the people and a lot of business can be developed on the net from here. He sees that as a major variable for the development of the economy and the standard of living for the people in this century. He sees that as the way for Tonga, and that infrastructure is the catalyst to providing all that—distance learning, tele-medicine and the expansion of the Royal School of Science.”

Soane said that one of the reasons why it has taken them a little bit longer to implement their system was because, “we do not want to establish a conventional telephone company. What HRH has in mind is to provide the basic infrastructure in telecommunications for the Kingdom and to take it from where we are now to the forefront of the Information Technology.

That is our objective and we have been trying to configure a telecommunications network that can achieve that. HRH wants the whole Kingdom to be wired up within two to three years, to have the domestic market wired so that people can have voice over Internet Protocol, interactive computing and movies on demand. If you are talking to your relatives in the outer islands, through the TV screen—it does not have to be a computer—you are talking to the person and you are seeing that person.”

Soane said that the capacity and the speed of a wireless system far exceeded that of a traditional copper wire. “Through a copper line if you are lucky you will be sending data at 45 gigabits per second, but through wireless we can increase to 11 megabits per second. In the USA and New Zealand they are offering 1.5 megabits per second. This will give you some idea of what we are trying to put here, this is a quantum leap on any country anywhere in the world, and that is for the domestic market.”

High speed

Soane said that for the business market, Tonfön would run a fibre optic cable in the Kolofo‘ou business area of Nuku‘alofa to network all government and business offices. “With a system such as Fibre Optic where we have the capacity and the speed, from 11 mbits per second to infinity, government could be easily transformed from a paper-inefficient administration to a paperless administration, which will significently reduce the administration costs.”

Soane said that government and the business community would be conducting their business on line. “With meetings you do not have to leave your office and drive off somewhere to attend a meeting. You can just sit in your office and talk to other committee members through the computer network, they will be able see you and talk to you, so government and the business community will virtually be on line, while at the same time masses of data is moved, and concurrently every body is talking on the phone, and watching movies at the same time. So you are moving an incredible amount of data. The town will then be connected to the Super Super Highway.

“Outside of Nuku’alofa people will still enjoy a service that is eight times faster than they have anywhere in the world.

“From day one we will be offering a competitive price for local and international calls, and data transfer. We are looking at the possibility of offering local calls free and to cut the cost of international calls by half. From day one we want to offer a better, cheaper and more reliable service, more products. It is really is the vision of HRH, and he has the people of Tonga in mind.”

Soane said that families who wanted to have access to the Tonfön wireless service would need a wireless receiver to be installed in their homes, to receive data transmitted from Tonfön’s Network Operating Centre. The data is then converted back to images, movies or voices.

Soane said that they were also preparing a system for the future when, “most fridges and microwaves will have a memory chip in them which will enable the supplier to keep the consumers up to date with their latest products. So in the next two years we would like to be able to provide the highway for that sort of service,” he said.