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

While some people welcome the open-policy approach of the Tonga government, which is allowing in a second telephone carrier and inviting applications for more Internet Service Providers, there are mixed feelings from the private sector.

Robert Boulori, of the Pacific Trading Company (PATCO), who started the first e-mail service for Tonga said that the government move has come too late. “It is a small market. For an ISP to break even you need a minimum of about 200 accounts. It will take two years to start attracting subscribers. To change your e-mail address now will create a lot of problems.”

Robert said that after he launched his service he wanted to proceed and installed his own satellite disk and established his own network overseas but it was blocked by Cable and Wireless plc who enjoyed a monopoly at the time. Since then he had lost interest in the e-mail business.

The current service is offered by Tonga Communications Corporation, and Robert said that the cost for an internet connection was still too high. “There maybe extra connection fees to other destinations, but apart from that everything else is constant. If the cost is constant, and considering that the number of subscribers has gone up, the rate then should come down.”

Computer-literate

PATCO engages in the retailing, upgrading and the repairing of computers. “Business has changed, there is more buying now by the Private Sector than from Government, and their buying is becoming very specific. It is more educated buying these days. It was a wise decision by government to send people from various departments to train in computers because we now have people who are computer-literate in most of the departments, and they know what they want and what to buy. Before it was just buying the latest and the fastest, now it is more specific for specific purposes.

Robert estimated that there are about 3000 computers in the country, and this figure could be higher if government eliminated the Port and Service Tax, which makes computers more expensive here than overseas.