by Kevin Pamba
With competition comes
growth
THE entire stretch of the highway
between Lae city and Madang town is dotted with Digicel towers.
There is a Digicel tower for every few kilometers.
Most of these towers were put up in the last few months while
some are still under construction.
People no longer have to physically be in Lae or Madang to use
their mobile phones.
Those connected to the Digicel network are now able to use their
mobile phones even while making a trip along the highway.
This means you can still use your mobile phone even in the
middle of the jungle between Usino junction on the edge of the
Ramu Valley and Mount Tapo overlooking Madang town.
It is now possible for drivers and passengers who are in trouble
in the middle of the jungle or the sparsely populated Ramu and
Markham Valleys, to make a phone call for help.
Parents in Lae or the Highlands sending unaccompanied children
to study in tertiary institutions in Madang by PMV buses can
check on the safety of their siblings during the course of the
journey.
The development has also brought telephone connectivity to the
villages, hamlets, trade stores, primary schools, aid posts and
outstations along the Lae-Madang highway and the outlying areas.
What Digicel has quietly achieved along the Lae-Madang highway
shows that communication via the telephone is no longer a luxury
accessed only in towns and cities.
Digicel has effectively changed the status quo – a mobile phone
network is longer be seen as a service that can only be accessed
in an urban centre or a mountain top overlooking a town that has
mobile phone signals but anywhere.
I want to make this clear to readers that this article is not a
free plug for Digicel.
But any development such as what Digicel is putting up along the
Lae-Madang highway deserves a mention.
It has opened a window of opportunity for the
people in a country where the majority is starved of services
such as access to a reliable and efficient communication
network.
All things being equal, once all the Digicel tower installations
along major road networks, towns and district centres are
complete, Papua New Guinea is looking at a mobile telephone
service that covers just about every pocket of the country.
Putting aside Digicel’s investment and obvious long-term profit
motive, the people of PNG are set to benefit in varying degrees.
This is an opportunity that did not exist this time last year.
As with the arrival of this newspaper 14 years ago, there are
detractors to new investment.
Some said newspapers are meant to be black and white and not in
colour when The National printed in colour.
But 14 years on, The National continues to print in colour and
provides a choice to that was never available before Nov 10,
1993. It provided competition.
The same can be said of the commercial radio sector before PNG
FM came into the scene in 1994.
The public can judge detraction and opposition to new investment
on merits of the argument proffered.
The detraction and opposition to the investment of Digicel must
also be judged by the public on merits.
If the losses outweigh the gains, then it is up to the
appropriate authorities including Parliament take up the
necessary action.
