Engineer aims to give cheaper telecom services

National, Normal
Source:

The National, Wednesday July 24th, 2013

 By MALUM NALU

A PAPUA New Guinea telecommunications and satellite engineer based in the USA aims to provide cheaper, faster, and better information and telecommunications services throughout the country.

Chief executive officer of Wanples Wireless Mathew Wari said this last Friday at the launching of the National Weather Service’s new state-of-the-art VSAT communications system, which his company installed.

Wari, who has worked for four years with Intelsat, a Washington DC-based satellite company and now runs his own company in Maryland, Washington, said his company would be concentrating its services mostly in underserved areas and low-income communities in PNG as well as on small and medium enterprises (SMEs), which have long been affected by exorbitant internet rates in this country.

“Wanples Wireless is positioning itself to take advantage of the growing telecom market,” he said.

“The company is intending to procure a market share of the PNG telecom sector, and to be a preferred supplier of satellite technologies and equipment considered ideal for the rugged PNG terrain and the isolated communities.

“The company is providing services in the procurement, distribution, installation, and support of VSAT and radio wireless systems to expand the reach and information and communications technology (ICT) to all parts of PNG – a key goal in the government’s Vision 2050 to correct very low teledensity as well as mobile and internet penetration.

“The company aims to provide the technology of choice for increasing access to telephone and internet services in PNG, which will not only be cheaper, easier and faster to deploy than the traditional land lines, but it intends to provide solutions for better business and service delivery models suitably adapted to rural and low-income communities.”

Wari said PNG had a rural population scattered throughout vast, mountainous, and heavily-forested land area with little to no telecommunications infrastructure in place.

“Wanples Wireless plans to interconnect isolated areas with rural telephony – helping to bridge the digital divide between urban and rural areas.

“The company has negotiated with Hawaii Pacific Teleport to lease satellite bandwidth to secure financially-viable solutions and business opportunities for service providers in connecting urban and isolated rural communities to modern telecommunications.

Wari said he was also keen to encourage Papua New Guineans in entrepreneurship.