Friday 13/02/2009 Important Day for IT in PNG

Last Friday (13/02/09) marked an important day for IT in Papua New Guinea. The reason been is that three important IT related matters were launched on this day.

The first item was the launch of Digicel's web browsing on the Digicel mobile network. It is a great step for Internet access for Papua New Guinean's. The reason why I say this is because it now makes accessing the web something that any Digicel customer with a web capable mobile phone can do. Which before access to the Internet in Papua New Guinea was mainly done via computers. The Digital world has now had it doors flung wide open to Papua New Guinean's. Thank you Digicel.

The next item was that Telikom released its ADSL charges which were approved be the ICCC on Thursday morning (12/02/09). That was advertised to the general public on Friday. What does this mean for my Wantoks. Well now there is a new major ISP player in town, I am hoping that it will bring down the charges for access to the Internet. (I will try and find time this week to do a ISP comparison).

The last but not least event that took place last Friday was the official launching of the UNDP and BPNG - Pacific Financial Inclusion Programme (PFIP). Which is planning to give funding to projects technology projects to help reach low income households with financial services. By the sounds of things from what I can gather this project will help fund mobile banking projects, etc.

Air fares could go down this week, but what about ISP charges?

Both Domestic and International airfares could go down this week which is great news for the traveling public in Papua New Guinea. According to the NBC "Air Niugini, expects to reduce its international and domestic sector fuel surcharges" between the 5th and 10th of January 2009 but is currently awaiting International Parity Pricing. This is great news for all Wantoks out there that are planning to do some air travel in 2009, and with the current competition that Air Niugini is facing from Airlines PNG and Virgin Pacific Blue we could see a decent drop in air fares in 2009. This is also in line with the current global oil prices that may help make air travel affordable in 2009.

I for one am a great supporter of competition and as a consumer 2008 was good year for competition both in the airline industry (Air Niugini/Qantas Vs Airlines PNG/Virgin Pacific Blue) and telecommunications industry (Digicel Vs B Mobile). But what I am hoping for in 2009 is for ICCC to give the go a head for Telikom or one of its subsidiaries to become a Internet Service Provider(ISP). Then hopefully we will see some real progress in the reduction of the astronomical prices that Papua New Guineans are charged by local ISP's.

If you compare what people in Papua New Guinea are charge by ISPs to other countries in the region you feel totally ripped off. For example iPrimus Speedster 6GB plan (broadband wireless) for 6 Gigabytes of downloads per month was advertised in the December 2008 NetGuide issue for $39.95 per month. So for arguments sake lets say that the current PNG Kina to Aus Dollar is 0.5. That would mean that this plan would be K79.90 per month, with speed reduction after you go over your limit so there would be no extra charges. Now if you were to look at Daltron's entry level standard wireless plan 64k - 100. Meaning that you get a 64kb link and you are allowed to use 100 Megabytes before you are charged K0.50 for every excess Megabyte. For a monthly fee of K225, you don't have to be a maths professor to feel that you are being ripped off in a big way. To Daltron's defence I must admit that here in Papua New Guinea, currently we do not have a half decent communications infrastructure and Daltron buys their data wholesale from Telikom so they can not go any lower then what Telikom charge them.

With these arguments in mind I am thinking that it is time for competition to enter the ISP market place in PNG. To give all the grassroot Wantoks out there a fighting chance to be able to get affordable internet access. The PNG government should treat internet access as commoditiy that all Papua New Guinean's should have and not something for the privilege Wantoks out there. More funding is need to help reduce the cost of Internet access to help make it more accessible to the general public in Papua New Guinea.

Skype - free calls from Papua New Guinea

Since the start of November 2008 I have being able to make free calls to Australia land line telepones and 29 other countries through Skype. Currently Skype is running a promotion where for the next 30 days you will be able to make free calls to a number of selected countries around the world. When I say free I am not taking into account the megabytes that are used for the calls. So there is some cost by it is an ISP that is making money instead of say Telikom or Digicel.

I personally have being using Skype for well over 2 years now to ring friends and family overseas which uses VoIP. I have found that this has dramatically decreased my phone bill. For example if you were to ring from your Digicel mobile in Papua New Guinea to a telephone land line in Australia it would cost you 99 toea per minute using Digicel. Normally when there are no Skype promotions on and you are ringing from Papua New Guine to Australia it would cost almost 3 australian cents. Which when converted at todays exchange rate of around 0.54 Aus$ to 1Kina it would cost you all most 6 toea per minute to call an Australian land line. You don't have to be a Uinversity of PNG accounting student to work out that you are saving 93 toea per minute by using Skype.

There is a large potential business use for this technology in Papua New Guinea. For starters companies can use Skype to call overseas to reduce their phone bills. They can also set up overseas numbers that are linked to there Skype account so when people from overseas want to call them they can dial a local number in the country that they are in, so that the call cost will be for a local call instead of an international call. Better yet people can do Skype to Skype calls so it will only cost you the megabytes that you are using. You can also do video conferences, instant messaging, send text messages to mobile phones, transfer files, etc.

Only real draw back of using Skype in PNG for the wantok on the street apart from an internet connection would be the ability to have access to a credit card. But now with the introduction of Bank of South Pacific's Visa debt card it would make it more viable for wantok's to pay for top ups of their Skype accounts.

I know as a fact that some of the large mining companies in Papua New Guinea are already using Skype to communicate. For example one of the mines that has a very remote site uses Skype to communicate the weather details so that helicopters that fly in and out of their site are aware of the weather forecasts in the area.

Text messages can help the fight against AIDS in Papua New Guinea

Over the last couple of weeks I have taken a keen interest in reading up on articles of how HIV AIDS is being fought in African countries using Technology. An article that was of particular interest to me was the use of text messages to remind AIDS infected people to attend appointments at clinics. The reason why this article was interesting is that it is using a "Please call me" service similar to the one that Digicel PNG is offering.

How it works is quite simple a medical clinic sends a text message to a patient using the "Please call me" service to remind a person to contact the clinic.

To implement such a system here in Papua New Guinea would be quite simple considering that Digicel all ready offers the free "Please call me" service. It would just be a matter of clinics obtaining a Digicel mobile phone. There would also be a number of other steps that would need to be taken like obtaining a list of patients mobile numbers. A major limitation would be that since the "Please call me" service is only offered on the Digicel network it would only work on Digicel phones.