MORE SOLOMON ISLANDERS TO OWN SMART PHONES

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BY GEORGINA KEKEA

BY 2025 the number of Solomon Islanders owning smart phones will double.

This is attributed to the improvements to Internet services that are expected with the build-out of the new submarine cable known as the Coral Sea Cable System.

The Coral Sea Cable System will link PNG to the Solomon Islands, with a connecting cable to the Australian (Sydney) landing station. 
In addition, the planned launch of the Kacific-1 satellite in late 2019 should also improve broadband satellite capacity for the Solomon Islands. 

Meanwhile the Telecommunication Solomon Islands (TCSI) 2018 Annual Report says Telecommunication Services continue to be the single most important driver of economic growth and diversification in Solomon Islands. 

 "Active mobile connections in 2018 rose to 482,029 an increase of 4% compared with 2017", the report said. 

 Overall gross revenue from telecommunications services increased marginally from SBD$376.3 million in 2017 to SBD$379.8 million in 2018.

 "This is reflected both the competition for customers and the continuing work upgrades to mobile and fixed wireless services in Western province, Malaita and Honiara". 

 The report says better signal coverage and access in the rural areas has added new customers. The increase in connections has also raised the national mobile penetration rate to 80 percent compared with 17 percent in 2017.
The ongoing competitive discounts in data plans and bundles have also stimulated new demand for internet access and usage, the TCSI report says.

 TCSI says the total volume of data downloads from cells phone continue to increase and is expected to grow at a faster rate. 

 In 2018 alone, Solomon Islanders downloaded 1,370 terabytes of data from cell phones and 876 terabytes from fixed lines.

 "The substantial increase was for mobile of some 111 percent compared to 105 percent in 2017", the TCSI report said.

 The new capacity of the undersea cable will be some 2,000 time larger than the country's current usage.

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