Tammur, under directions from the National Executive Council, had been instructed to open PNG’s telecommunication sector to competition to allow more Papua New Guineans access to affordable and effective communication services.
Tammur said he had done this through a series of reforms of the National Information and Communication Technology policy.
He said that if these reforms were successful and endorsed by the NEC next month, certain exclusive rights currently enjoyed by Telikom would be forfeited. This included Telikom’s exclusive rights over international links.
State-owned telecommunications regulator Pangtel will also be restructured so that it will form the basis of a new ICT regulator.
Tammur told a media conference last week that Telikom would not be granted exclusive international gateway rights that it had been pushing for.
He said it was important for competition that immediate liberalization of the international gateway happened by allowing all network licensees to operate international gateways if they met certain minimum licensing criteria.
Tammur said that existing retail price regulations would be reviewed.
They had to be removed from mobile and fixed network services because they could become redundant and potentially harmful, he added.
While the government was keen to ensure universal access to communication, it had been warned that any move to open competition should be comprehensive and implemented on a timely basis, subject only to transitional arrangements and the time required for proper formulation and introduction of new regulatory structures.
