Digicel Gets Favourable Termination Rates in Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea's incumbent telecoms operator, Telikom PNG is reported to have been ordered to pay significant termination fees to new entrant, Digicel. The local National newspaper reported that Telikom will pay Digicel nine times more than what Digicel will pay Telikom for use of Telikom’s land lines to call mobile phones and vice versa.
Investigations by The National newspaper revealed that Telikom will pay Digicel 46 toea/minute during peak hours for calls made from fixed lines to Digicel’s mobile phones and 40 toea during off-peak hours. However, when Digicel mobile phone users call Telikom’s fixed lines, Digicel pays a low rate of 5 toea per minute to Telikom during peak hours and 3 toea during off-peak hours.
The paper, citing unnamed sources said that the management at Telikom PNG are "fuming over the raw deal" which was imposed on both companies by the Independent Consumer and Competition Commission (ICCC).
Neither party were willing to comment on the report, citing commercial confidentiality.
“This is totally unfair to all Papua New Guineans. Where is ICCC coming from? Isn’t it supposed to protect the interest of the people of PNG. Isn’t it serious about price control and fair competition,” asked one senior government official yesterday.
In March, the government confirmed that Telikom PNG would retain a monopoly on the international gateway for both companies. The company will eventually be granted an operating license for its own gateway under existing market liberalisation plans - however no timeframe has been given for that.
Last November, Digicel said that its network had contributed to the 0.7% growth to the Gross Net Production (GDP) of Papua New Guinea since its launch as the second mobile operator on July 20, 2007.
Figures from the Mobile World database estimate that Digicel ended the first quarter of this year with around 610,000 mobile subscribers, compared to 275,000 for Telikom PNG.
On the web: The Nation - Mobile World
Posted to the site on 6th July 2008
