By ALFREDO P HERNANDEZ
DIGICEL, the new cell phone service provider in the country, yesterday updated Prime Minister Michael Somare on the telco’s investment level here and its multi-million kina network roll-out plans that seek to cover the country in the next 15 months.
The meeting between Digicel executives that included vice-chairman Leslie Buckley and chief executive officer Digicel-PNG Kevin O’Sullivan and the Prime Minister took place at the Morauta Haus office yesterday afternoon.
Mr Buckley informed Sir Michael the telco had rapidly rolled out a state-of-the-art network that now covers the National Capital District (NCD) alongside the provinces of Central, Morobe, Madang, Simbu, Eastern and Western Highlands, East New Britain, New Ireland and Karkar Island.
He told Sir Michael that his company expected to cover the entire country in the next 15 months
He had stressed Digicel was now in nine provinces that cover 60% of the population, adding that his company was committed to offering Papua New Guineans access to high quality mobile telecommunication services nationwide at an affordable price.
He said that Digicel’s rollout programme this year would cover 11 more provinces, thus covering all regional centres in all 20 provinces.
In the next few months, the provinces of Milne Bay, West New Britain, Bougainville, Southern Highlands and East Sepik will also be covered.
The expansion will subsequently cover more areas in Western Highlands, alongside Enga, Oro and Sandaun provinces and Manus.
Saying that Digicel will continue to show the same level of commitment this year, Mr Buckley pointed out that many areas in the country did not have access to cell phone coverage before.
Mr Buckley expressed hope that Digicel and B Mobile would inter-connect before he returns to Ireland.
He told the Prime Minister that PNG was a very impressive country showing strong economic growth.
“The Digicel board is delighted that competition in the cell phone market contributed to a 0.7% increase in gross domestic product (GDP), and we hope that this upward trend will continue this year.”
Reacting to this, Sir Michael said: “A licence had already been given to Digicel to enable it to operate a mobile telephone service.
“My Government is following its PPP concept in doing business … we have an open-door policy and we welcome investors to come to PNG.
“Anyone interested to do business here must abide by the Constitution and laws of this country.”
Also present at the meeting were Communications Minister Patrick Tammur and Digicel-Pacific general counsel David Dillion.