Telco left in the dark

 Bmobile, which is 85% owned by the government, is unaware that there is another mobile operator in the country’s mobile market, group CEO Sundar Ramamurthy said.

Ramamurthy said Bmobile was recently injected with a capital of US$87m (K245.6m).

However, he said, “We do not have any details on the new entrant so it would be premature to comment on this at the moment.”

Ramamurthy added that the market in PNG has been open to competition since October 2010. 

“The market today has three mobile carrier/operators in Bmobile, Telikom PNG and Digicel.” 

“There is no detail on the roll out plans of the fourth entrant into the market,” Ramamurthy said yesterday in an email. 

However, Ramamurthy said it was hard to speculate on the commercial success of a fourth entrant into the market.

“This is probably best placed to be answered by NICTA (National Information and Communication Technology Authority) the regulatory agency that approves telecommunications licenses.” 

Meanwhile, Digicel which is said to have a significant market power on the wholesale mobile access and call origination market in the country, said it welcomes the arrival of a new mobile license operator.

“The arrival of a third mobile license operator in Papua New Guinea is greatly received by Digicel. For a country governed by an open regime, Digicel welcomes competition as a means to ensure that the customer gets value and best outcome for the services provided.”  

The new telco, Awal Telecommunications Corporation Ltd, a Dubai company, was awarded three telecom operator licenses; gateway operator, individual application operator and individual mobile operator by Communications and Information Minister Jimmy Miringtoro, last month in Dubai.

Awal Telecommunications Corporation Ltd is the telecom brand of Awal International Holdings Ltd, a Dubai based multi-national company.