The Solomon Islands monopoly telecoms provider, Solomon Telekom says that has obtained an injunction against Digicel Pacific, restraining it from providing any telecommunication services (including mobile phone services) in Solomon Islands until the High Court makes a decision in current proceedings by Telekom to have its exclusive licence upheld by the Court.
Digicel has also been restrained from doing anything under an experimental licence purportedly granted by the Telecommunications Authority (Mr Robert Bokelema) to Digicel and from seeking to renew that licence or apply for any new telecommunications licence until the Court's decision.
Earlier this year, Mr Bokelema wrote to Telekom, threatening to amend its licence to remove the exclusivity provisions and to grant a licence for mobile services to a competitor (Digicel). Telekom has commenced the court proceedings in order to protect its licence and to prohibit Mr Bokelema from issuing any licence to a competitor of Telekom. It argues that Mr Bokelema has no power to unilaterally amend the licence or to grant a licence to a competitor.
Telekom's licence has a number of provisions relating to its exclusive rights. Those rights are subject to a negotiated review between the Government and Telekom scheduled for 2008. However, Telekom has told the Government and Mr Bokelema that it is willing to participate in a genuine review now and that it would consider giving up its exclusive rights if the review led to a new governing Act, an independent regulatory authority in place of the Telecommunications Authority, a level playing field for all service providers and guaranteed financial support for the development and maintenance of rural telephone services.
Without those changes in place, Telekom says that it has no choice but to protect its exclusive rights as the only means to fund its provision and continuing development of services outside the capital, Honiara. Telekom says that all telephone services outside of Honiara are operated at a loss and, if it has to share the Honiara market with competitors, who will only be interested in profitable services, before the necessary review, then Telekom would have to stop providing services outside Honiara.
In giving his reasons for granting the injunction against Digicel, Mr Justice Brown commented that it was unfortunate that Mr Bokelema had not been represented at the hearing despite the Attorney General's office having notice, particularly as it appeared that Mr Bokelema had misunderstood his powers in this matter and that it was important that Mr Bokelema be properly advised.
Telekom says that its offer to the Government and Mr Bokelema to take part in a genuine review of the telecommunications system remains open. There is no reason why that review could not start in 2007 instead of waiting until 2008. However, until that review is completed and a new system is negotiated, Telekom will insist on preserving its exclusive service rights.
It is likely that the trial of Telekom's action will take place in the middle of next year.
The Mobile World subscriber database estimates that Telekom has around 7,400 subscribers - giving a population penetration of just 1.3%."
Posted to the site on 2nd January 2007
Posted to: www.cellular-news.com/story/21186.php