By Mary Fonua

Making its first footprint in the Pacific Islands with the launch of its new GSM mobile network in Samoa today, a new provider, Digicel, aimed to make an impression that won'’t be lost on the shores of even the smallest islands, calling this the start of a "“Pan-Pacific rollout of state of the art communications."

With a fanfare fitting its USD$40 million (Tala 110 million) investment in Samoa alone, the company'’s executives, and their Pacific partners made it clear that they are aiming for nothing less than a Pacific-wide GSM network that will stretch from Papua New Guinea to the Polynesian islands, and that this is not only in their sights, but may become a reality with breathtaking rapidity.

Papua New Guinea, the Solomons and Fiji, have already granted various GSM licences to Digicel Pacific Ltd., and its local partners, and Tonga may just be next. Executives from Digicel Pacific arrive in Tonga tomorrow, November 2, to meet with King Siaosi Tupou V and Tonfon's Soane Ramanlal for continuing talks. The king on ascending the throne in September declared that he would relinquish all his business interests, and this includes his ownership in Tonga's GSM provider Tonfon.

Digicel makes no secret of its willingness to rapidly exploit such opportunities to enter new markets, and its success in the Caribbean made the Pacific Islands a natural area of interest. The company formed by an Irish entrepreneur, Denis O'Brien in 2001 brought a GSM mobile network to Jamaica, followed by 22 other nations, where it rapidly and aggressively become the market leader - it boasts - within six to nine months of entering the underdeveloped islands' markets. After only five years of operation its revenues reached USD$600 million for the last fiscal year ending in March 2006.

When the company heard that Samoa was liberalising its cell phone licensing in June 2005 Digicel leapt at the opportunity. "“Similar levels of service will be delivered to our customers in the Pacific who have been neglected by existing operators for far too long," Denis said in a statement. He is the Chairman of Digicel Pacific, a company 100% owned by Digicel Ltd., the parent company in which he is the primary shareholder.

Digicel Pacific's General manager Vanessa Slowey said at the launch in Apia that from throughout the Pacific licensing interest was, "coming in daily."

...“We are going to up-the-benchmark in the Pacific," she said, "We are not afraid of competition, we thrive on competition."

Samoa

After forming an equity partnership with CSL Mobile, a company that was formed by the Samoan national provident fund, the new Digicel Samoa won a bid for one of three Samoan GSM licences only four months ago.

Digicel also paid a reputed USD$12 million to buy out the 90% stake that Telecom New Zealand had aquired in Telecom Samoa for around NZD$1 million ten years ago. This allowed Digicel Samoa to take over Telecom Samoa's 35,000 subscribers, and knocked out any serious competition at the starting line.

Today the company rolled out a GSM solution that increases Samoa's cell capacity, they say, by seven times and, depending on who you are talking to, covers anything from 70% to 90% of Savaii and Upolu.

The new Samoan GSM network has a capacity for over 100,000 subscribers and the company aims for a market penetration of 70-80%.

"A consolidation would have had to occur at some point," said the Samoa Manager, David Borrill, "eventually, when three companies had battered each other to death, or the way Digicel has done it at the start has proved a successful and winning strategy."

"We have built in massive capacity with 43 cell phone sites right around both islands,"” he said.

The voice and data services were launched today and in two weeks Digicel Samoa intends to roll out a new GSM internet service.

Digicel Director Seamus Lynch told a press conference that the company had set up a, "24x7, 365 days a year customer service operation"” that would be available for all technical and commercial assistance. The company has its own information technology section and all IT needs would be attended to from within Samoa. Digicel is offering Telecom Samoa's old subscribers free phones and free hook ups on their old numbers and the cheapest ever international calls for all subscribers. The new service also gives Samoans roaming in 140 countries across 400 networks.

Fijian, Thomas Underwood, Digicel's front runner in the Pacific Islands.

Tonga

Tomorrow the CEO of CSL Laeimau Oketevi, along with her technical business development manager David Main, and Thomas Underwood, Digicel Pacific'’s business development manager, will come to Tonga. "There are still options we are going through," said Laeimau, adding that Tonfon had been very helpful during an earlier visit to look at how Tonga's GSM networks had been set up. "“We were looking for a partner before putting in a bid for a Samoa GSM licence and if Digicel had not arrived then possibly Tonfon may have become a technical partner,"” she said.

Strangleholds

Vanessa Slowey said that the Pacific'’s experience was similar to that of the Caribbean where, "monopolies had a stranglehold sometimes for over 70 years and island countries were stuck with badly dilapidated, neglected telecommunications, and terrible customer service. The Pacific is also in a stranglehold of inefficiencies."

She said that the company's strategy is, "“to invest heavily in making sure our network is robust, state of the art, crystal clear first world technology and we never launch unless we have no less than 80% of the coverage, we offer low prices, and then let the customer decide."

She said all the Pacific services set up by the company will become part of a network in much the same way as cell phone users in Europe could move from country to country within the same GSM network.

"“In Samoa it's taken courage to put in a huge capital investment of USD$40million, which in the next 12 months will almost all be spent, and 80% of this will have gone into building the Samoan network.

"We have embarked on an aggressive training programme and will go forth to win this market and we are also working furiously on other licences in the Pacific," she said.

PNG, Fiji, Solomons

Papua New Guinea has granted the company a GSM licence and the service there should roll out in the first quarter of 2007, Solomons Islands had granted an experimental licence, while a license in principal from the government of Fiji may also lead to a roll out in early 2007. An announcement on Tonga will be made once all the options had been explored, Vanessa said.