Review of Papua New Guinea Telecommunications Regulation

The problem

Digicel was threatened by a proposed change to regulation in Papua New Guinea (PNG) that would give competitors access to Digicel’s mobile towers.

As a new entrant Digicel had invested US$120 million in telecommunications infrastructure and built 120 mobile towers to ensure high levels of coverage. The incumbent telecommunications company, which had a poor network and few mobile towers, had proposed the change in regulation.

How we helped

Castalia made a submission against compulsory third-party access to Digicel’s mobile infrastructure as part of a review process run by the regulator—the National Information and Communications Technology Authority (NICTA). We developed detailed analysis, compared other jurisdictions and examined the market in PNG. We argued that in PNG, where security issues affected operation of mobile towers, security of supply and competition effects of having multiple networks with their own towers outweighed any benefits from sharing of the existing infrastructure.

Impact

Digicel was not required to provide compulsory third-party access to their mobile infrastructure.