NEW MOBILE PHONE FIRM TO COMPETE IN FRENCH POLYNESIA

PACIFIC ISLANDS REPORT

Pacific Islands Development Program/East-West Center
With Support From Center for Pacific Islands Studies/University of Hawai‘i

NEW MOBILE PHONE FIRM TO COMPETE IN FRENCH POLYNESIA
Mara Telecom to launch at end of year

PAPEÉTE, Tahiti (Tahitipresse, May 8, 2008) - The new Tong Sang government has authorized Mara Telecom to launch a third generation (3G) mobile telephone service network in French Polynesia at the end of the year. Mara Telecom is associated with the Nokia Siemens Network.

Mara Telecom is the first competitor for the 14 year old Tikiphone, the mobile phone operator in French Polynesia that has had the growing market to itself since 1994. Tikiphone, with its popular trademark "Vini" mobile phone, is an affiliate of the French Polynesia Office des Postes et Télécommunications (OPT).

"Mara Telecom’s arrival in the telecommunications market is an opportunity for the ‘country,’" the French Polynesia Council of Ministers said in a communiqué issued after last week’s decision.

The third generation of wireless technology in mobile communications includes such capabilities and features such as:

Enhanced multimedia (voice, data, video and remote control);
Use on all popular modes (cellular telephone, email, paging, fax, videoconferencing and Internet Web browsing);
Internet broadband width and high speed;
And, roaming capability throughout Europe, Japan and North America.

The Council of Ministers’ communiqué announced that Mara Telecom’s operation would create more than 80 job opportunities directly and indirectly, including the training of young local technicians.

The Tong Sang government sees the opening of the mobile telephone market to Mara Telecom in addition to Tikiphone as an opportunity to provide local consumers with new technologies and knowledge at competitive prices.

French Polynesia’s mobile telephone and Internet access sectors were officially opened to competition on October 1, 2003 when the then Flosse government approved French Polynesia’s first three telecommunications licenses. The licenses went to the OPT, Tikiphone and Tahiti Nui Telecommunications, a joint venture between the OPT, France Telecom and France Câbles Radio (FCR).

Slightly more than a year later, the then Temaru government indicated its support of a second mobile phone company when the finance minister met with François Gerin, assistant general manager of Siemens, and Juiien Siu of Tahiti, who represents Mara Telecom.

In last week’s authorization, the Tong Sang government noted that since the creation of Tikiphone in 1994 the GSM Vini mobile phone began in 1995, Tahiti Nui Television and Tahiti Nui Satellite were created in 2000 and broadband Internet service began in 2003. The broadband service’s number of subscribers has grown from 900 in the first year to 24,000 today, the Council of Ministers’ communiqué reported.

French Polynesia’s next planned telecommunications project is an underwater cable that Alcatel-Lucent plans to install linking Tahiti and Hawai΄i. This would give 83 percent of the some 260,000 people in Tahiti and Her Islands potential access to the 21st Century world of the Internet. The cable, due to be ready for 2010, will have a broadband connection estimated at "over 100" times faster than now.

The project, which has been talked about on and off for the past several years, became official in January with the signing of a contract between the OPT and Alcatel-Lucent. The installation cost given at the time was some nine billion French Pacific francs (US$116 million/75.4 million euros).

The cable has been given the Tahitian name of "Honotua," which means the link towards the open sea. The contract was signed at the beginning of the 10th year of Internet connection via satellite for French Polynesia’s service provider, Mana, an OPT subsidiary.

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