TELECOMMUNICATIONS service providers will now only pay $640 for a 10-gigabyte line compared with $40,000 for the same from next month which should eventually lead to reduction in prices for consumers.
According to the Fijian Competition and Consumer Commission (FCCC), the cost of a 10GB line was $256,000 which was initially reduced to $40,000.
FCCC chief executive officer Joel Abraham said the reduction in rate came about based on the review of charges for the FINTEL cable landing station and other supporting services related to the provision of broadband services to retail customers in Fiji.
Mr Abraham said the change meant that the cost of service was no longer driven by the capacity of connections but rather by FINTEL’s capital and operational expenditures which had also resulted in a reduction in FINTEL’s charges for access to the submarine cable.
“Being that data is now an essential and widely used commodity which is essential to business and communication and given that FINTEL has a monopolistic position in the market, we undertook a thorough review of the current rates to ensure accessibility of these services to Fijians,” he said.
Mr Abraham said unregulated monopolies could prevent Fijians from accessing important services and did not stimulate competition in markets.
FCCC, with the World Bank technical assistance, has undertaken further assessment of FINTEL’s services and charges.
Two main changes that have resulted from the assessment are:
- Introduction of cross connection service, which supercedes the facilities interconnect service. Cross connection means “a service utilising a fibre connection between telecommunications operator in Fiji and the international submarine cable, typically housed at a cable landing station”.
- Change in definition of co-location service which now encapsulates “the provision of conditioned cabinet space within a cable landing station based on standard telecommunications rack configuration with power requirements up to 4Kw, but excludes electric power usage”.
