Pacific Telecommunications Council '09 has taken the theme of change to capture not only the myriad new developments across the entire telecommunications domain, but also the manner by which change is occurring through greater collaboration. It was held from January 18-21, 2009 at the Hilton Hawaiian Village Beach Resort & Spa in Honolulu, Hawaii. The moderator Christina Higa and panelist Minoru Sugaya, Michael Bourk, Shoko Kiyohara, and Norman Okamura spoke on the Universal Service in the Pacific Islands.
The Pacific Islands are spread across miles of ocean and are extremely diversified. However, the small population in each region is a common feature. There are four major contributing donor countries that cover the islands, they are: the United States, Australia, New Zealand, and France. These four countries have different approaches to universal service and or any other subsidies to construct and maintain telecommunication networks. Although all of the Pacific Island nations are surrounded by the Pacific Ocean, such subsidies are only applied domestically. In order to access outside networks they need satellite or marine cable, but such network is not subsidized by the domestic universal service policy.
This is the age of Web 2.0. that has been spurred on by inexpensive access to many network services for consumers to upload their self generated information which is sometimes called the Consumer Generated Media (CGM). However, in order to upload our information on the Net, we need a broadband network. In addition, if we want to upload our video information through the YouTube, a broadband backbone network connection from our site to the United States is essential.
So far, cell phone and flat-rate Internet access services are becoming popular in major towns in these regions. But such services are not available in remote areas or islands. In addition because of poor backbone network infrastructure, Internet is not easy to access.
Source: http://www.ptc.org
How Universal Service Mechanism is Applied in the Pacific Islands? Minoru Sugaya
Universal Service Provisions in Australasia: Michael Bourk
DTV Transition Policy in the U.S. : Shoko Kiyohara
How the U.S. Government Support the Pacific Islands in ICT Development? Shoko Kiyohara
