Issue of affordability

CONSTRUCTIVE discussions on social, economic and political issues are being generated via social media nowadays but these discussions happen beyond the reach of the bulk of the country’s citizens.
There is an urgent need for us to move our discussion and information- sharing platforms away from the technological media and into the marketplaces and villages where the bulk of our people are in order to keep them informed on the current precarious financial situation in the country.
We are living in an age where technology giants shape your everyday reality.
Telecommunication companies worldwide are exerting a profound impact on the global audience as far as information sharing is concerned.
The race by the digital technology giants to control the industry is almost akin to a global dispensation of technological power.
World governments are aware of this inevitable reality. Consequently, they are aligning their socioeconomic policies by way of stringent investment in vital telecommunication infrastructure in a bid to get internet access across to areas of the world where it is not already there.
In other words, these governments are trying to bridge the gap between the technology haves and the technology have not’s.
While corporate entities expand and diversify their market portfolios beyond their traditional stomping ground, most of us in PNG consider ourselves as technology have nots.
The government of PNG has a lot of questions to grapple with when dealing with telecommunication giants.
One of these questions which our government must address is that those technology giants who wield tremendous technological power must not intentionally or unintentionally exploit the masses.
The telecommunication market in PNG has to be regulated in some way in order to make television and internet services accessible and affordable to the majority. Most of us are unable to regularly afford the high cost of television services.
How much do you pay to watch TV WAN or BBC World News for, say, a week?
We need to share this information with others so that they can know whether the cost of television is high or not in Papua New Guinea at the moment.
Maybe the question of accessibility now is very much tied to the issue of affordability.

PAUL WAUGLA WII
WANDI, CHIMBU