Digicel Pacific formally applied Friday for a license to operate mobile phone service in the Marshall Islands, its first formal effort to engage in the north Pacific after establishing business operations in Samoa, Papua New Guinea and Tonga since 2006. Digicel Pacific opens service in Vanuatu next week and expects its new mobile network to be ready for launch in Fiji by October.
For Digicel Pacific to operate in the Marshall Islands, the government must amend laws that protect the government-owned monopoly supplier of telecom services, the National Telecommunications Authority.
“We’ve proposed a direct investment of $17 million for the Marshall Islands,” Fiji-based Digicel Pacific’s director of business development David Borrill told the Marshall Islands Chamber of Commerce Friday. “We want to establish a mobile phone network that will provide 80 percent coverage of the population from launch.” If it happens, it would significantly expand coverage for remote outer island islanders than is presently offered by the government telecom operation.
Borrill briefed the government’s cabinet prior to meeting with business leaders. He said he believes the government is supportive of opening telecommunications to competition.
Borrill’s visit to Majuro follows a visit to Digicel Samoa headquarters earlier this year by Marshall Islands Transportation and Communications Minister Dennis Momotaro, who is also a member of the National Telecommunications Authority board of directors, and Minister in Assistance to the President Christopher Loeak.
“Competition is good for monopolies,” Borrill said. “None (in the Pacific) have failed because of competition and all have grown. It’s an opportunity to change the way they do business. And people are looking for other options.”
Borrill also confirmed that Digicel Pacific has held talks with officials in both the Federated States of Micronesia and Palau, but has yet to file for a license to operate in these two other United States-affiliated islands in the north Pacific.
