Despite a slow start, the Pacific is starting to participate in the worldwide telecommunications transformation. Although the region is still lagging other parts of the world, countries that have introduced competition are making significant progress. Tonga and Samoa were the first to introduce competition and have gone the furthest in liberalising their mobile telecom sectors. A second mobile operator began operating in Papua New Guinea in 2007.

The impact of competition has been dramatic. In Samoa only about one person in every one hundred had a mobile phone in 2002. By 2007, almost half the population had one. During the same period in Tonga, competition increased mobile phone ownership from 3.4 per cent to 30 per cent. In Papua New Guinea the introduction of competition led to a sharp increase in coverage and a doubling of mobile phone subscribers in a short period. Palau, which introduced competition in 2006, has also done well in expanding mobile coverage.

Extending telecommunications services to rural and remote areas is important but difficult. Despite advances in technology, the cost of serving these areas remains high. Removing restrictions on entry is one way to expand the geographical coverage of telecommunications services.  Samoa’s experience has shown that with competition, mobile phone usage spreads well beyond capitals. Although the population of Samoa inhabits a narrow coastal strip around each island, it has achieved 95 per cent coverage. 

The internet is also beginning to reach the Pacific. The Micronesian countries lead the way, possibly because incomes in the Federated States of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands and Palau are much higher than in other Pacific island countries. But internet access is also cheaper and more widespread in countries that have competition. For example in Fiji, which has competition, residential internet access is more than twenty times cheaper than in Timor-Leste which does not have competition.