Ladies and gentlemen, we are very, very privileged this morning at our inaugural national ICT summit to welcome and the presence to be graced by our dear Prime Minister honorable Robbie. Thank you Please you put the Prime Minister to me, was hosted by our good minister on opportunity Massey, thank you it gives me a great privilege this morning to welcome our dear Prime Minister, honorable James Merapi. Our good minister, honorable Timothy masu who is, by the way, is the second year this will commemorate the second year as a minister nation would give a special welcome to our online viewers who are joining us by NBC and our Facebook streaming pages. We welcome you to our inaugural national ICT Summit. As we before we commence our program, we will invite the good Lord to bless our occasion. This morning how good Prime Minister Chao will invite us all those of us who are joining online as well and those who are here, please bow your head with me. As I opened with a word of prayer. Our gracious loving Father in heaven, we thank you and praise you is beautiful morning that we have the freedom to worship you in this country that you have given us with thank you for this momentous occasion at the National ICT Summit, and how technology will be driving our economy and to chart the way forward for the prosperity of our people. We are very humbled and graced the presence of our dear Prime Minister, honorable James Merapi. And we thank you for the leadership of our dear minister, honorable Timothy Massey. And, Lord, we dedicate and give this national ICT summit back to you, that all the learnings, all our interactions with the private sector, with the civils sector with the government, as we coordinate work together, to bring development to our people in this time, we ask for Your blessing for goodness upon us. When there's no vision the people perish. And we think this government has the vision for the people, bless this government, and bless all the people of this beautiful country, and our friends and partners from around the world who have joined us via livestream as well. You've blessed us all, we offer this prayer in Jesus name. Amen. Thank you once again. It gives me great pleasure to welcome house the minister who is overseeing the department, the ministry, the department, the National Broadcasting Corporation and our regulator, the National ICT authority. Nikita is the host for this program. And we'd like to give him the opportunity to work the official welcome. And the opening remarks. Listen, gentlemen, please make welcome our good minister, honorable Timothy Matthew.
Thank you, Mr. Assembly, Mr. weruva. And I want to say good morning to everyone who is in this room. And of course, everyone who is online with us joining us from from wherever you were this morning. Thank you very much for joining us all. It is indeed a great pleasure and of course, a milestone for the department and the ministry and of course, this government in hosting this first ever ICT Summit. I want everyone here to give a clip in acknowledging this. Good morning, and thank you all for joining us for this inaugural national ICT Summit. Let me begin by acknowledging our dear honorable Prime Minister, honorable James Merapi. Thank you very much for taking time from your busy schedule to be our keynote speaker in this very, very important occasion. I also want to thank all our partners from the government, the industry, the academia and our international partners for tuning in to this summit today I also stand to be corrected. That this is the first the first national ICT summit to be hosted by the government of Papua New Guinea. This summit is part of the government's initiative, through my ministry, to engage with you to engage with all of you, our key stakeholders and to understand and establish current trends and developments in Papua New Guinea. So that we are able to charge clearer direction to inform the anticipated national ICT policy 2022. Since 2008, previous governments have focused on infrastructure and connectivity. The telco sector, a regulatory framework put in place through which we saw the establishment of NICTA. 10 years on ICT has achieved or invoked evolved drastically and is transforming the way we conduct business across all sectors of the economy. In the telco space alone, there are major changes taking place right now. We as government are in the process of merging telecom and be mobile le 2022 We will see a third operator, branded as Vodafone, come into full operation. We are also monitoring the acquisition of Digicel Pacific by Telstra, which is subject to regulatory compliance. With all these changes taking place, we are projecting that in three to five years time mobile use it's a jump from the current 2.5 million to 6 million users. But ICT is not just telco anymore. As you all know, we are now talking about a much broader scope that covers as far as media convergence, cloud technology, FinTech and artificial intelligence. To recognize the broad scope of ICT and its benefits for government. Our government endorsed the digital transformation policy. We'll soon see the rapid growth of digital services delivered to the public sector. While the summit outcomes will provide much needed input to the national ICT policy print, national ICT policy 2008 We already expect that Nicolas regulatory roles will expand further to cover the digital media, cloud technology and artificial intelligence. I am interested to put a bigger emphasis on rural telecommunication by providing and delegating infrastructure, entity roles from the universal access services or UAS. We are also expecting that business houses and ICT SMEs must play a closer partnership with our government and that is very important because the small ICT trust to us. We must not forget them. We have to embrace them and work together with them and support them in any way. In keeping up with this trend I am delighted to announce today that this government is approved for the overhaul of NBC broadcasting infrastructure. from analog to digital. A transformational project is set to commence in the coming weeks, to which the department is working closely with NBC to finalize a nationwide analog to digital broadcasting plan. Of course, COVID-19 has fought forced upon us a new normal way of life. And if you take a moment to think about this COVID-19 has made digital technology a necessary tool for us to have and to live a normal life and a new normal. Therefore, in many ways COVID-19 has been a blessing in disguise. Ladies and gentlemen, whilst we embrace digital technologies as a necessary tool and the new normal, it comes with its own challenges. major challenge is the security of our information and systems. When we conduct business online. You all are aware by now that government's financial system, the information Finance Management System, or ifms, was recently attacked. I issued a statement immediate statement, confirming that the malware looks to have similar features to that of Hive resident ransomware for the benefit of the general public. Hi ransomware has recently hit health systems across the United States in as early as June 2021. Prior to the cyber attack our government through the digital transformation policy 2020 recognize the need identified cybersecurity as a key priority. My ministry now took immediate steps to reform restructure and rapidly improve capabilities within the department of ICT for which we are established, we have established a cybersecurity division. Most importantly, my ministry initiated and took to cabinet drafting instructions for the proposed digital government bill 2021. We expect this legislation to empower the Department of ICT to be a central coordinating body to enforce amongst other measures, cybersecurity standards, and so forth. Let me stress that having that digital government bill 2021 passed is now the most important step required for government to ensure that cybersecurity measures and forced across all our critical infrastructure and system. These chunks are let me also announced that just last week, we concluded work on the National Cybersecurity policy ministry has submitted to cabinet for endorsement. We now and dissipate the instructions from cabinet to commence our cybersecurity audits across all public bodies. And this will run parallel with the full opera operationalization of the National Cybersecurity Center and the p&g Cyber Emergency Response Team. Aside from cybersecurity, my department is also developing a set of digital standards to support the digital transformation agenda. standards will be enforced through the anticipated Digital Government Act 2021. And to conclude, ladies and gentlemen, and viewers. The theme of the summit is enhancing our economy through ICT and digital transformation by ministry takes together the best minds for the next three days to present and discuss on specifically targeted thematic areas. These thematic areas include access connectivity, and infrastructure, digital inclusion, governance and project management, digital government services, divisional financial inclusion, digital ID and data governance, innovation and entrepreneurship SME, agriculture mining and other innovations critical national infrastructure, digital skills and digital digital literacy, media and broadcasting industry and cyber safety and cyber security as you present and discuss around these thematic areas. I urge you to point out areas in policies and programs where you see the government can make Internet. This is for a better national ICT policy. I am very, very delighted to have joined you here today this morning for this inaugural ICT event, as we hear from local and international speakers, and interact and Pete's ideas on pressing ICT challenges. This is our inaugural ICT summit and I congratulate the department secretary, Mr. Steven Medina, who and the team and of course, support from NBC management, and. Mr. Killer, we want to thank you very much for helping us to make sure that this summit takes place with those remarks. I thank you all. ladies and men,
I now have the pleasure of Prime Minister, honorable James Marape to deliver the keynote address. Please join me in welcoming our prime minister.
All right, please be seated. Thank you very much the honorable Timothy Maaseiah. For the invitation for me to be with you in this small but very significant location. And I do acknowledge your leadership in the sector has I spoke at the second anniversary of your your minister in this sector, instead of being elsewhere, and so I do commend to your leadership, your Kin. Kin intention to ensure that we are doing better in the ICT space in our country. I do acknowledge that our ministers who are tuning in to be part of this occasion. I acknowledge all agency heads with us, led by Secretary Stephen Matano We do acknowledge chairman of NATO Mr. Noel mobilya, as well as CEO, Mr. Kiddo, we only only will I do also do acknowledge our MD of the National Broadcasting commission. Mr. Noor, thank you for your questions. And those of you in the ICT space in our country, lead agencies, all deputy secretaries all section heads, all industrial representatives who are here but by fact that we have media represented as well as others in the industry, our international partners, regional members from Pacific, of course, our media fraternity, all of us. Ladies and gentlemen, I want to thank the organizers for this summit. And thank you for inviting me to be part of this auspicious occasion signal that is something that is very, very crucial more into the digital era. I remember very clearly this year we met but that 75. thick lines, so dozens of before contact without Well, we were standing on mountaintops and setting for one month to another mountain. That was a mode of communication. How in one generation we have changed from from the person communication and where to mouth communication to the analog sort of communication system. And we've migrated from that part all the way right now into digital time and digital space and digital communication. In one generation. We've made this leap and it must not stop. The world is moving fast beyond us. This person model speaking as we speak. Last night I was reading into artificial intelligence. And I was seeing how file advance at a economist. How advanced man's line of thinking I into that space. It is very relevant. We have this important summit so that we to move with time, if not move on power time. What's wrong with us moving into that space? And so, Minister, I congratulate you for this initiative. It coincides very well with your two years being in office as a Minister of State, you're certainly working very hard. Within the last two years, it certainly wasn't easy. We have endorsed the digital transformation policy. We also have tried to ensure that we escalate the ICT department into very strategic department into a level where it's given its new prominence. And we are now waiting bluffed instruction, for instance, for the digital government bill 2021 to take place and I give you my commitment that this will be delivered. Paid digital government, Bill 2021 represents what will be a major wave of public service reform as it provides government a whole of government approach rather to ICT in public service and ICT major platform to ensure public service is reformed and unified. The bill will formally establish a national cybersecurity as the Minister has the advice and a center will be will will will be established to protect and ensure that all our digital infrastructures, informations and assets maintained are secured and safe and can be more reminding them the evidence that I found a system was which. And so this bill, as I speak today, I give you my fullest assurance to minister and every one who have an interest in this face, that the digital government bill 2021 will be progressed hopefully November it will see some light if not we go to Parliament sitting that is still coming in February sitting and an April sitting before we rise for the elections. And we intend as a Government to ensure this bill is delivered. So as delivered sort of platform in which we operate in the ICT world is secured through law that ensures safety compliance control and an inventory unified platform in which Hello government operates inside. And that is a commitment I give to you. It is more it is more relevant in this day and age. As I said today, we live in a digital world. Every functionality of commerce, functionality of government functionality of services government services, like E commerce, e education, e health, that's the way we are moving and space that is the right path for us. For instance, I just give you an indication, you don't need to have specialized doctors in remote areas they could be in one center. And an operating operating room in in another part of our country is controlled by specialized doctors elsewhere, whether in PNG or elsewhere in the world, this can be assisted through digital platform that is available in our country and we give you a commitment as we ramp up support to the ICT department to not be a peripheral or side department but to through this bill bring you into the mainstream as a central agency also, you will then ensure you have influence into how the government's digital platform is transformed and moving into the future. And we give you a fully support to ensure your department reserves the right place in the cells in time and space in which human functionality is being aided by the digital technology and the digital space that is moving far ahead them what we have received so what we are thinking and so. Like this hello So so today I am here just to give you an evidence and facial evidence that the whole of government is right behind your summit today, and may the outcome of this summit, Be fruitful, be relevant, and to ensure that we advice as to how we could give you full support, to move us from where we are today. to the next level in as far as ICT and its role in our government, and its role in our economy, and its role in our society. Now, and going forward into the future. I look forward to a fruitful outcome. And hopefully, the outcomes of this deliberations at this summit can be the basis in which we move ICT to higher, better level going forward. And as I said earlier, I give you my commitment, the digital government bill will be delivered in its in its present form as you submitted, and unfold. We look forward to your department and the SD space being a central part of our government system. Going now forward into the future. Thank you very much. God bless each and every one of you. And I will offer my apologies, I have given it to conduct at 10 o'clock, I will take my leave at the very earliest. Thank you very much. God bless all the best in the summit. Don't stop, they just offer what you have to offer. As far as recommendation is concerned, we look very, we look forward to embracing all recommendations that you put forward in as far as the sector is concerned. Thank you.
Thank you, I'm sure you'll all join me in giving a nother one of appreciation to our dear Prime Minister, honorable Prime Minister, thank you for your commitment for unified approach and to ensure that the Ministry and the department is promoted to us to a central status within government so that we can deliver these key services for the country as well. We have come to the end of this first segment. And I just want to thank once again know the Prime Minister and our minister. This is a an auspicious occasion by which we will commemorate this nationalize the summit. So I will invite our our leaders within the sector to come forward and Prime Minister if you don't mind. Mr. We will we will take a take a photo session at a photo session with you as well. So thank you, thank you, everyone, those who have joined us as well. Prime Minister, thank you komplexen for the one day you but also thank you. Yes After this the prime minister will excuse himself. Yes, our our team will come forward and just organize the stage and then we will invite our good chairman for NBC TermInfo Nick tessari CEO, Anita and VC with the department to come forward and can enjoy this time together. Take photos with our prime minister to mark this special occasion or the Prime Minister needs to attend to NBC the National Executive Council sorry so he will take us live after the photo session. Yes Yeah. Thank you, everyone. Let's, let's give another Thank you an appreciation to our dear Prime Minister, honorable James Merapi. And our dear minister, there will be a Scottish outside and Prime Minister will take his Eve to chair the cabinet. It's happening soon
Good morning once again and welcome to our plenary session this morning we are very very pleased that Are you able to join us via livestream and on NBC swell? Thank you. We have our very distinguished minister. We see our prime minister just taking this live. And we'll give a very special welcome to our team who is here for the next session. Led by our Minister he seated here. On is our far right is chairman for national ICT authority. NICTA, Mr. Noel Mobiha. On our good ministers, left is secretary for the Department of ICT, Mr. Steven Matainaho. To him to his immediate left is Mr. Kila Gulo-Vui. CEO for NICTA. And last but not least, is our National Broadcasting Corporation Managing Director, Mr. Kora Nou. To begin this session, we shall invite our good Secretary, Mr. Steven Matainaho. To take us through policy and legislative landscape within our sector. please make welcome our good secretary.
Minister, honorable Timothy Masiu. And to the ones in front chairman, Mr. Mobiha, CEO for nikto, Mr. Kila Gulo-Vui. And, of course, our Managing Director for NBC. And if our stakeholders out there online, I'm sure they're out there. And of course, our general viewers out there. I can also see some of our invited guests here, including CEO for digital Mr. Colin stone, good morning to you. Let me just acknowledge everyone here. Thank you once again. And of course, so good Prime Minister would like to thank our prime minister for being able to come along, of course, along with our minister, it was 10. It was actually a unique time for all of us here at the ministry and at the department to have both today. So we're very grateful for that. And so I believe that Prime Minister and our good minister have highlighted what the journey that we've come across in the last two years under the Marape government. A good minister has also highlighted the good work that we've done. And the efforts that we've undertaken in terms of the endorsement of the digital transformation policy, and its consequential drafting instructions for a proposed digital government bill. And I'd like to at this point, also, thank our good Minister for his leadership. And And now that we've heard from the Prime Minister on on, on his commitment on some of this work, I'd like to again say thank you. As Minister Masiu has highlighted, the objective is focused on the ICT national ICT policy. He highlighted that in in 2008. And many of you in the telco sector will will know we have the policy in place, the National ICT policy 2008. And minister also highlighted that there's a need to refresh it. At the time the focus was on telco communications. Now we need to start looking at different spaces. And this is why the in the session in this summit sorry, we have essentially 10 thematic areas, I'll be asking those in the control room to actually put up some of the photos for the benefit of those online, put up some of them on the side screen so that we can see where we are in terms of the discussions. I think that would be helpful for the viewers out there. But these 10 thematic areas we've tried to aggregate where there's a need to increase the use, and also the demand of ICT and utilize it in a safe and secure manner. It idea is that when we increase the use and the demand of it, it has a direct correlation to the GDP growth in the country. And that's why our team is focused on economic growth through digital transformation. So, of course, we have economists out there. I'm not primarily an economist, but it's effect out there from all the other economists that when you start investing and putting effort into the ICT sector, you will see growth in the GDP. So with that being said that 10 thematic areas Minister has highlighted it already, I am actually already looking forward to the discussions, I want to encourage those out there that are watching and listening. We've missed on government's initiative for an open government, we wanted to make it open, no registration process, you can just log on or you can tune in to the TV. And we see you can tune into the radio and you can listen, we wanted to make it open for all. And we wanted to start this with other events too, so that our people out there knowing that there's work being done. But not only that, that we can interact lively in life. We can interact, live with them, and get some response on policy matters. So this is the way that as Minister has said, this is the way of the new normal. We want to encourage those out there on Facebook, that are logging in. Please. As we discuss, we are actually watching and reading the comments there. Are moderators involved in the end facilitators involved in each of the thematic sessions will be fed with these questions. And we will try our best to bring out those questions during the q&a. So I'm just talking on the next steps in the in the summit will be running for three days. And I think that's my role at this stage. I'd like to say thank you again to those that have come online and are invited guests, we look forward to further discussions. With that being said. I'm concluding my speech now. And we'll we'll pass it on to our other invited guests to speak. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Secretary, as mentioned by our good secretary. If you have any comments or questions policy input that you wish to suggest or make as the discussions are ongoing, please do so on the on the live stream page from the Facebook page. So that we have team on standby to collect and that will be processed. And we can give feedback as soon as we can. So thank you very much. We shall now have an address from the media and broadcasting sector segment of our sector and we invite our good Managing Director for the National Broadcasting Corporation. Mr. Kora Nou Please make him welcome.
Thank you Master of ceremony. I have a PowerPoint presentation that will the ICT it's on now. Thank you, Minister Masiu. Thank you for being the host of this inaugural ICT Summit. I think it speaks volumes view in the sector that we could have the prime minister in our presence on Monday and two days later on Wednesday. So I think the sector under your leadership is doing a good job. So we have the personnel attendance and interest of the Prime Minister so commendation to minister and the department and all those involved in the sector. Chairman of the NICTA Board Noel Mobiha your CEO Mr. Kila Gulo-Vui. Secretary Matainaho, staff of the ministry and Department also said we acknowledge Colin as well. Thank you for your presence and colleagues around the room and on livestream as well. My my person I've been asked to focus on one aspect of the team that we were asked to talk also mind mind will be limited to SSI CT, most of the focus and rightfully so. is on information technology. I'll pause here for a while and just concentrate on on one other equally important aspect of it. And that's information, particularly media. Like I said, ICT comprises two major components information and information technology. So today I will limit my myself to the information aspect and try to provoke some thought on on one particular aspect of it. And that's the convergence of media and dp and the context. Give you a quick background on. On the media landscape in PNG, traditionally, we have had the print media, that's the post Korea and the national or daily, daily newspapers and others like Sunday Sunday bulletin, or used to be Sunday chronicle that's it comes out weekly on a Sunday. Then the electronic media that we had, now obviously, the radios FM 100 png FM with its three subsidiaries one talk radio light, of course, my own NBC, radio and television, TV, TV one. So just to give you an idea of how the media was traditionally set up we have we're restricted to print media, the electronic media was restricted to their own space let us at traditionally, radio have been on the sport when news breaks. So radio had a field day if there was a good story, Govan radio would have with only hour every hour until the evenings when the televisions would kick in. That's not to say that the the print media was left behind. We will go into school as well, people would tend to want although they had it on radio the previous day, watch it on television in the evening, they will still want to see the printed version of it to believe there was new saw in so many ways, the traditional media as it was set up was still relevant and was relevant them and in my view is still relevant nowadays. Along concert Internet changing technologies. So now, what we call the lonely I mean the rest of the world has done the same is not different, where we have the media convergence in the media industry where have printed a definition, high level definition from from the Internet, you have all forms of media print or electronic and online merging. to still give the news to us in in various forms. So to give an example post Korea, like I said earlier in one of the slides would wait for the print edition the next day. Believe the news of the previous day, then pause for a second are we getting left behind so we have issues like feed on Facebook, on post Cora heaven website and other forms of online presence so that they can be on par or be competing with the rest of the media as well. So where we will post Korea would have waited until next year to do its story now nowadays you can see from its presence online, then they also into a domain that's an example of convergence of media as well. I'll just give an examples of just Facebook and websites but they are the other forms that the other forms of online media that the traditional media has come to adapt and adopt to reflect the changing times and technologies Not everyone has a good presence on PNG and look that's an example of television. Going into more why I'm saying online is like TV One would be primarily TV, then it's more like a print version of news. So it goes in PNG loop and that's been quite successful as well I can't help but use my use NBC as another example of where traditionally we've been radio predominantly radio. We've got radio on national radio, that's a broadcaster of headquarters here. We've got private firm that's geared towards the youth population. And then we have the provincial radio show as well. So we have we still despite our challenges, we still have a huge presence of radio across the country. Television got introduced recently just over 10 years ago, still growing. Now we've also gone into gone into online presence as well so we will not different to what the others are doing as well. We've got FM most provincial capitals etc. Hello and Joe raka who was still feeding off the the hello from some embassy in southern islands and Juba from NBC western highlands. And we've also encouraged the provincial stations to have their own Facebook a conscious world calling is happy to see that we have an MVC presence on the channel five on the playbooks. Why am laboring over d the radio and thanks to minister being here as well. We've reintroduced although the trend is going on online as well we still have challenges in the provinces as well so we've gone we've invested heavily in medium wave radio transmission as well. Sorry this anyway, we've invested heavily in medium wave radio transmission and we've just in July this year, the minister and governor of distant islands and member for Goroka officially commission the mid 1010 kilowatt median we're transmitting in Goroka. So that's broadcasting not i I stand corrected, but not to most of the highlands provinces. I think LA is quite still out of reach. So we are working around that to see how we can bring a headline in as well. So that's the propagation map for the transmitted that we have in Goroka. That's Internet to cover most of the highlands provinces by radio, national radio that is we've a machine the warning Goroka and there's another tree that due to delays back COVID The three other transmitters are coming from Canada. So we're trying to have those 311 replace the agent one in our Gani another another one in rubble and inlaid. So these are all to improve our coverage and also the gear towards providing better better coverage they win the elections next year. I'd like to let her say that this is one topic that I was told to talk or talk on. But my my take home message my recommendations from from this fuselage is that know the traditional media's been trained to observe ethics media ethics, responsible reporting but the more we more we go online, the more we go online and and there's a loose last set of users that are not covered by the journalism code of ethics? No. Would they think that they, they, they need to report responsibly. But those are areas that I would recommend this, this workshop to take home and think about how we can address those. Also. It's bordering on across cross media ownership as well, the traditionally we've been in DC as the example. We've been radio and television. Now we're going online. What does the leash legislation say about that? What does our licensing with Nick, permit us to do or not permit us to do? So I left this at the end of the summit for us to consider policy and legislation on the converts media. The newspaper Act allows for printing of a newspaper, but does it also allow online presence as well. So I'm not I'm not saying one way or the other, I'm just trying to provoke thought that after this, after the summit, we can consider the changing landscape. And if it's, if it can be reflected in the proposed amendments to the policy of 2018. We can we can also accommodate because accommodate this issues, because maybe it will literally impact on how the media operates in the country, in the not too distant future. So with those few remarks, thank you for your attention.
Thank you, MD Mr. Nou, a lot of exciting times we're in at the moment and how the convergence in in our space is enabling news and information to use technology more frequently than it used in the past. So it's the challenges and it's also opportunity for us as a sector to follow the trends that are available. Thank you very much, MD No for the presentation. We will now invite Mr. Kila Gulo-Vui, the CEO of NICTA, our regulator to address present his address on the regulatory framework please make him, welcome. Thank you, MC and very good morning to you all. honorable minister. Hon. Noel Mobiha chairman of the NICTA board, secretary of the Department, Mr. Matainaho and the NBC Mr. Kora Nou heads of industry and departmental heads Welcome to the session, I want to express my sincere thanks and appreciation to the minister and the Secretary for giving me an opportunity to say a few words on the regulatory front in the digital Jenny had a number of slides but unfortunately I want to put them up there during this, so I was asked to say a few words on the regulatory framework, but I must apologize to the secretary I thought take a different pitch and rather than bore you with the current regulatory regime, which many of you are familiar with, but read a PhD presentation in the sense of digital journey that is now before us and as we have embarked on so I decided to put the title of my presentation on the regulation in the digital era exploited Okay, so very briefly, as you are aware, the regulatory framework in PNG is basically based on the national ICT act 2009, which provides the regulatory setting and the policy objectives of the 2008 a clearly set out in Translated into the legislation through that act. Now under the National ICT act, that there are regulations, of course, the National ICT operator license regulations 2010 radio spectrum regulations, and the rules and determinations and the guidelines that the need to board sets from time to time. As you are aware, Nick is aboard because they're chaired by Mr. mabuya. We have industry representation and we have an independent expert, currently Caroline Greenway from Australia. Country consistent with the regulatory framework, the regulatory setting, the framework is also completed by the I triple C which has a primary role in oversight in competition regulation nycdoe operates within the policies testing Cindy Act, the act as you know is now nearly 11 years. So, it has stood the test of time but needs interpretation as new circumstances arise particularly the digital transformation and the digital agenda that is before us. Nicolas role is to ensure that the objectives of the for the development of the sector and welfare of end users are met and only seeks to intervene only where market forces cannot deliver on those objectives. Let me remind ourselves that the the the current regulatory framework essentially and in a nutshell RHIC provides a pro competition regulation framework. It requires nitda to facilitate competition as the key engine of sector grow. It also promotes is it it is also a pro investment regulation that requires needed to give a high priority to maintain incentives or sector investment in its distributions. Act also provides a universal access regime basically seeks to address service coverage to areas where commercial operators would normally would not go for commercial constraints. And it does sets us clearly an ocean and access regulation regime. And the Nick does focus and the regulation provides primary focus on all state regulation because the OSI regulation is about access facilities services that are provided on an essential basis and not otherwise be economically duplicated would be costly. So, the idea is to the regulatory focus is on also regulation and if they're also regulation is addressed correctly and an expectation as the flow on effects would flow to the consumers. That doesn't necessarily work and in some point in the process, you recall need to intervene at the retail space to retail price determination. And the the key element in the wholesale regulation where dysregulate is negotiate and a betrayed model this basically means that under the legislation, the service providers or operators engage in negotiate the terms of faxes have access to their networks. Now, if it fails, then they it provides the data then arbitrates a key component feature of our legislation, when we talk about digital transformation, transformation and is the technology and service neutrality characters are features of the Act, which basically means that the regulation does not favor a particular operator or particular technology. And these are key attributes when we are going forward in terms of digital transformation. So very briefly, the key responsibilities of JMeter licensing authorization, this is critical because it provides opportunities for new companies and investors to establish in an ICT business. It is a very open market. Maybe many, there is maybe a misconception that the government is restricted to a number of operators in any given field. But currently there is no restrictions. The only restriction is of course, limited by spectrum availability for those that are in the mobile space. We can only accommodate so many operators in the mobile space because of mumble spectrum limitations, of course in the connection, management of radio spectrum and numbering resources, the key responsibilities of NICTA, and of course, the universal access scheme. So what does this mean in terms of the digital transformation agenda, and we commend the government and the minister and the department in taking the lead in setting a digital agenda, which quite clearly sets where we want to be in a digital era. Now, this is all possible true convergence. Convergence has been defined as the ability of one or more different networks to carry different services are bringing together of communications industries. Now, examples are the provision of Internet on your smartphone, you can see a TV you can send, do a voice, send a text message to a voice call, an Internet crypto play or court Play services. So but offered by ASB so service providers, but come on just the regulation is directly has been based on clear distinction between different services, for instance, telecommunications, broadcasting, these are distinct services in the past and regulatory regions were quite distinct in that sense. So the challenge is now that these services Internet telephony, broadcasting are not carried over the same platform under different conditions. The the challenge is stay aware where you need to adjust the regulatory framework to adjust the emergence of convert digital transformation through video veterans some of the challenges that we see going forward, and I think it's good at over the next couple of days, we'll be talking about policy and the some of the regulatory options that could be considered to address those is a ongoing issue you're facing problem this is about technology game getting ahead of regulation. As I said, our current tech somehow seeks to accommodate by doing this, what we call service neutrality and technology neutrality principles, meaning that we don't tend to regulate based on technology or service or by operations, then the design are fit for purpose regulatory frameworks, where the framework is fit for the purpose going forward in the regulatory digital transformation. A number of regulatory challenges around the question in the traditional notion of liability, where regulators will seek to protect consumers or correct market failure or enhance quality of service through regulatory intervention, that the challenge in the digital space or digital transformation is do you attribute to apportion responsibility for damage or harm caused by the use of technology? Should I take calling or should I take Korra for instance, in terms of failure to deliver or delivery of harmful content, that those sort of questions so, those are the issues that we need to consider? And of course, institutional and transport challenges whose responsibility is it in this role to regulate financial transactions? Or do we concentrate on the ensuring that the availability of the pipe is there? And those sort of questions and content regulations should when we strike the boundaries between telecoms and the for instance, the in the case of the chancellorship board, so, these are the awfully as we go along that becomes clearer, but they see because the regulation is is directly being based on clear distinction between different services, different recent developments, particularly digital transformation, powered by convergence is bled such differences. Now, then, a lot of issues have to be answered how do we respond to the traditional public policy consensus that is at the heart of regulation, in whistle service? To be doing this? Should we define currently, its voice is very clear. It's a basic voice, we extend it to rural NGO. But when it comes to broadband and to drive The digital transformation agenda should we define? What is the minimum that the speeds that our population should be entitled to? Is it 256 That they can only do send them a message and do basic? Or should it be more one meg so that the ordinary citizens have the same mobility as you and I and the digital transformation, agenda of government s impact on our society. So I think those are the policy questions, basic narrow voice 256. So one megabit what is the obligation what should we impose on city obligation and operators, so that the digital transformation agenda as we have now embarked on becomes real, you know, societies. Of course, licensing and authorization spectrum management, you will recall during this year, we have started the process of identifying spectrum for broadband services 4g, might have messaged them to say 5G, but it's this is opinion, we were seeking to identify spectrum to support the digital transformation policy. And of course, but the challenge is to operators to optimize existing spectrum 3G 4g, that needs to be optimized before we can move on to 5G, of course, numbering, IP ISPs getting nine IP addresses. And then we took in we're numbering to support voice telephony, of course, inter interconnection. And in the midst of all this network reliability and network security is paramount. As you know, some one of our networks are they just been on for and we need some answers as to see once the it is a critical piece of infrastructure, we may need legislation to ensure that critical infrastructure is supported. So that availability is always there. Of course, law enforcement interception capability to support security, rule enforcement agencies in discharging of their responsibility, media ownership, cross ownership, what do we discuss, what would be the limits if there is any, of course, you see some accessibility and access to emergency services, quality of services, and consumer protection, ensuring that consumers are properly informed of their rights and they make an informed decisions on the coupling competent services that are available. So as I come to the end of my presentation inika we continually look at a regulatory framework to ensure that there is regulatory certainty unless you know, it would be it is critical that we look at the regulatory checklist as we enter the digital journey. So some of the questions that we pose ourselves, does the regulatory framework facilitate progress in of different services over different platforms? Because this is critical to availability of services, and to push the digital agenda? Does the regulatory framework fully support competition? What are the regulatory policies for new technologies, that's our legal framework contain the necessary legislation to support digital transformation? I know and I commend the department for taking the lead in this series. But of course, we need intellectual property laws, electronic transactions, data privacy and security. We may not need to do them in serious insurance, but maybe need to be done in parallel because we need to get moving on this journey. To conclude, just a few recommendations, it is clear that technology is faster than regulation, it has always been. We need to ensure that any framework fully support competition, and checks are in place to ensure accountability and transparency, transparency are maintained. Maybe there should be considering for interim regulations, as we work on a full blown regulations, legislation. And then we need to keep in mind the modification of regulatory frameworks that address convergence as we move on, so we did I thank you for your attention and we look forward to a productive discussions over the next three days. Thank you.
I'm sure you'll join me in thanking our good CEO for NICTA for the presentation where they are challenges they are opportunities for us to regulate the sector in in a way that it allows our economy to grow as well. So thank you, CEO. And thank you, Chairman, Mr. Mobile as well, for presenting NICTA today. Minister, we are very pleased to have a representative from the Department of Finance here today. And these are two ladies and we are very, very easily so let's give a round of applause. And I'll invite on stage, Deputy Secretary, Department of Finance, Miss Margaret Tenakanai and the IFMS project manager. They'll introduce themselves and then take us through the financial management system and the governance please make them welcome Department finance.
Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Firstly, I'd like to acknowledge the presence of Minister Masiu. Secretary Matainaho and the CCO NICTA, MD, and other agency stakeholders, the media, and ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of Secretary Langan, who is very busy with commitments and will not be able to attend. My name is Margaret Tenakanai, i Deputy Secretary support services with the Department of Finance. And with me this morning is the IFMS program manager, Mrs. [name]. We would like to like to take this time to thank Minister Masiu and Secretary Matainaho for giving us this opportunity to be one of the speakers to talk briefly on the IFMS which is the Integrated Financial Management System. And now the system is improving governance and accountability in the public systems. Without any further ado, I would like to invite Miss [name] our IFMS program manager who will be doing a short presentation on this topic.
Thank you. Good morning, no distinguished guests and participants at this summit. I have been introduced already. So I'll start with the presentation. Before I start on the overview of the IMS system, I just want to give a very brief background on government systems that have been replaced with integrated financial management system. So in the past for a very long time, we the government has been operating three separate systems to do its financial management. The three systems were standalone one system did the budget for the country, the second system, manage the general ledger. And the third system was used to spend the money. So all three systems were stand alone. And all these systems had databases that were also isolated and stand alone. So we have 20 provinces 89 districts and more than 300 lm G's. So, you add the numbers together that was the number of databases that has that was spread across the country. So then the introduction of ifms really is to was to bring in those these three systems together, have a consolidated general ledger and be able to bring in some improved financial management of the of the country's finances. I FMS was was born in back into the sun and tool as a program financial management improvement program. And it took so many years for the government to to come up to us stage in getting the ifms completely functions completed and the rollout program begins Back in 2011 for the system so as an integrated system which bringing together the accounting side of it and budgeting plane and then budget preparation and then execution of the budget to allow agencies and sub nationals to spend the money. So, all those three systems have now become one system if you will, as you see on the on the screen Okay, as you see on the diagram, what is trying to show there is that all data that have been in those 20 plus 89 plus 300 or databases now sit in one database and the entry of information an entry of data into the system is only once and data flows through all the different processes in from the budgeting all the way down to spending it and the reporting coming out of the one source database. So, several databases now into one database. So, again, the main features of the of the system planning budgeting accounting module is all integrated to form a single real time accounting and finance system. It's an online system. It is a license a workflow system with access and visibility restricted to users functional roles. So for example, budget officers, they they put together the budget for the various agencies and organizations. And so when budget is approved, it comes down to the agency levels where agencies will have the arrows, the financial delegates, the section 32 officers. So so what we mean by workflow system is that, that F three and F F four that you sign manually, is also processed through the system through those workflow flow through the workflow. All transactions that are performed on the system have a full audit trail. So inquiries of misappropriation fraudulent deals can also be tracked back on the system on who performed the transaction at what time and where the system allows for a drill down capabilities for full visibility, meaning that these records this transaction records can be inquired on and can be reported on. system also allows for automatic bank reconciliations where we can load transactions from statements and be able to do a mention on the system to reconcile the account. We also have implemented an electronic funds transfer. At this stage we send in major grants to provinces through the EFT interfacing with a bank of png system in delivering those funds to the respective accounts out there earns wildly when the budgets approved warrants issued electronically on ifms There is a monthly warrant Celyn mainly for control and limit of government expenditure. Funds checking on the system prevents budget overspend and I FMS is frequently reconfigured to enforce compliance with any changes in the PFM a or any other legal requirements. Okay, just a quick brief update on that. We now have a fully functional ifms which has been delivered to 37 national agencies 11 state authority Is 15 provincial governments and the DDS and LL G's and 11 a chase, there is a federal rollout to five and five more provinces to complete the provincial governments and remaining eight or nine provincial head PHA sorry. So the from my FMS, we can prepare the national budget, the each of the provinces can also prepare the sub national budgets. All DDS can prefer the PDA budgets. Pha can prefer the PHA budgets can print a consolidated recurrent and development budget. Budget reports also generated from the system. We have a consolidated General Ledger with real time capability for drill down into all transactions. With we have extensive, extensive financial management reporting that can be generated from the system. And we now producing the GL png public accounts from AFMs. Thank you, that's just a brief on the ifms.
We're most grateful for our team for finance, who have taken the time to be with us here. Thank you. Oh, good. Ladies, please extend our sincere thanks to our good minister, Sir John Pindari. And our good secretary, Dr. kandungan, for your participation on behalf of our good minister. Thank you very much. Well, we have come to the end of our plenary session. And it is now time for q&a, which which we will now invite a moderator, our very own nickel board member, Miss Caroline Greenway, who is joining us via zoom from Sydney. Are you there, Caroline?
Yes, I am. Thank you, Russell. First of all, I just like those.
Oh, sorry, Caroline. Good morning. How are you how Sydney.
It's very, very wet, and possibly we're going to have a thunderstorm. So very happy to be inside with all of you. Thank you.
Thank you, Caroline, our good minister, will be excusing himself because he needs to attend to the cabinet meeting. So if I can, before we get into the q&a, if I can just invite everyone to please share our tokoto good minister. The joy of him hosting our inaugural ICT Summit. Minister, thank you very much for your leadership. And may the good Lord continue to bless you as you continue to lead the sector, going into the future. Then gentlemen, our good minister, honorable Timothy Matthew. Thank you, you may take your seats. And thank you we I also acknowledge once again, Mr. Collins, Tom, thank you very much for for being part of our, our session today. And we have after the q&a, we've got our thematic area one, which is on connectivity and access, which we will we're really looking forward to that the manual is already on our COVID. And we are very, very good because the key on the key policies of the sector is in affordability and access. And that will be coming on after this as well. So Caroline, our our good team, Secretary of recorded the minister out and they should be back soon. But we can commence, we can commence and we can take questions and take feedback based on decision primarily for our policy input go into the ICT policy. You of course a member of the Nikita board, and you're very much aware of the happenings within the sector in the region and in the country as well. So with that, I shall hand over to Caroline, we have our good MD for NBC was here. And if the other matters that you wish to moderate on, we shall give, maybe for the next 10 minutes for q&a. Thank you, Caroline.
Thank you, Russell. Could I just ask? Firstly, are there any questions so far from our participants? have already come through the chat or on the Facebook?
So at the moment, we have a, we have a group that is gathering questions at the moment. There isn't any one particular to the session yet. But we have on stage here, our good NBC Managing Director, his presentation on broadcasting and convergence, and, of course, our finance team who have just presented on the integrated finance management system. Okay, I can see a couple of your wisdom, Carolyn. Yes. I see a couple of questions coming through, but I think they for the panelists, I think that haven't joined rejoined us yet. So you can we can tackle them as best we can. And based on that, if it's anything regulatory, you should be able to come in as well.
Thank you. Yes, it's over the calendar. So I have a question here about the ifms data center. So I think, for our colleagues from the Department of Finance, this is a question for them. Is the data center located in PNG or is it offshore?
Thank you, I shall I shall let our good team from the ifms Come forward.
Okay, the IFMS data center is here in Port Moresby.
Okay, thank you very much. Thank you for that response. I'm got another question here for the department. So do we have our we do have Steven back? I say, can we consider the D ICT to provide and vet service level agreements from technology providers?
Early and thank you for that question. The answer? The answer to that lies in the digital proposed digital government bill. So in looking at looking at where we're going in terms of shared services, there may be a it's it looks imminent, that we will start looking at volume purchasing of hardware and software as well. We just need the legislation to get through to be able to start looking at that whole government approach to to to purchases of, of technology, specifically hardware, hardware and software as well.
Thank you very much for that response. Secretary. I've got a question also for Mr. Nou from NBC. This is from Ebuka Mona, who is saying that they agree that there is a policy and regulatory gap on broadcasting content. While there's a licensing category for content licenses. The NIC deck is limited in how addressing a lot of policy issues that you raised in your presentation could cover png national content as well as how we want such content to groom the future that we want for our people. I'll throw that over to you Mr Nou.
So sorry, what's the question please?
that the person asking the question agrees with you that there's a policy and regulatory gap in broadcasting content. And while there is a licensing category for content licenses, the NIC deck is limited in how addressing a lot of policy issues that you raised, could cover the PNG national content, as well as how we want such content to groom the future we want for our people.
Yeah, I hope I can answer this way, like I said, in my presentation, the obvious get rich there. And I think the media whether knowingly or not knowingly or true convenience, have taken on board and convergence. And I think some wouldn't even know that they've crossed the line as well. So that's why raised the issue of provoking thought on. Visiting legislation and policy as well, to look into this issue. And I think also to an extent where it also helps with designing or developing the kind of content that we would want for the country as well. So if I, if I, if I don't answer your question, the gap is there. And I think, among among courage that NICTA and the department have set in motion the amendments to the policy, and which will lead on to legislation to look into this issue as well. Does that answer the question?
Sorry, I think so. I, we can ask the audience member to come back if they'd like some further clarification. Now, we have another question to do with the the hacking that happened recently. So this is Russell, Dicarada, is asking, Did we share our mistake, history of IFMS hacking, and improve our data security and safety? So I wonder if the department of finance people could provide an answer for that. And perhaps the Secretary would also like to make a comment there.
Let me answer the the initial part of it. May I make a correction there that the IFMS data was protected, and was not affected by the hacking is is the infrastructure that the ifms runs on that want to? So from my data perspective, all IFMS data is safe. System is available as we speak on our limited, limited infrastructure, assisting national agencies. Thank you.
Thank you for that clarification. Another question here that is both for this is our last question because we have to go on to the next session. The question is both for Victor and for the department. And it's about the Universal Access Service Fund. So it says there's been some discussion and this is from David Newell Townsend, some discussion about separating the Universal Access Service Fund Management from NICTA and making it a separate entity. And the question asked, What are the views and considerations by NICTA and DICT about that option? So who would like to go first? Okay, Mister Gulo-Vui.
Thank you and good morning. Yeah, maybe I'll make an attempt to answer that question. And then the department can respond. The these are the discussions in a very early stages at this point. So, obviously any there's no right and wrong answer to how we should restructure the universal access arrangements including the current funding going forward. The in any case, the whatever happens that must be fully our experience is that it has to be legislated in a way that enforcement is followed through, you don't want to be in a situation where you find yourself that you're not able to enforce the provisions of the regime, if it is not supported by a legal mandate. So I will not say too much on that other than to share our experience views. I mean, this is to say, we're really in the stages of considering this proportion. And of course, Nick is experienced in administering the initial access arrangement will be useful in this discussions, as it is open to any proposals, including this one that would make the missile arrangements more effective. Current currently the, of course, there are other regimes as you may be aware, we have started the process of the universal access policy review. And somewhere along the line, we will open this up to discussing with the wider community and the industry. That is the proportion at the moment, a classic, we open to any suggestions, including the one that is before us. The industry access objective is clear. And that is to bring connectivity to all our citizens wherever they are the same level with the same prices in wherever they reside. So our challenge is to find a mechanism that will work. At this time, we will share with you our experience on the current regime and we are open to considering any other proposals. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Gulo-Vui. Secretary Matainaho?
Thank you, Carolyn. I think the two points I just want to bring up which I heard from Minister speech Minister Moscow and one of them was on, on, he mentioned that he wanted to put focus on rural rural communication, getting connectivity out to where we have not reached yet. The other aspect that he lightly spoke on was also the need to review on the delivery, and whether there was a need for a separate entity to deliver on, on the UAS. And but I think Mr. Gulabo has rightfully stated that we have just commenced the review of the UAS and we do have working towards a draft of the of a UAS policy that will guide us in in articulating a model on how we were to deliver us. So at this stage, I think the question to ask is, you know, we need to review, as CEO said, you know, this, there's really no right or wrong, we just need to agree to a model that that suits our context, US currently regulated, it's currently framed up and provision with in the national ICT act of 2009. And it's delivered on that basis. So what what we need to do now is look at it and see how successful it is, and if that regime or that governance framework is working for us. And I think it's from that basis that we can then start to see how best we can look at those options. And as a CEO said, there's different models out there. You know, the US model this Malaysian, and, you know, all other countries have different ways of structuring their governance framework. So I think it's a discussion point at this point in time As we expand the US policy for further consultation, we will talk more on that. Thank you.
Thank you, Secretary. We now have to transition to the next point on the program. So I just like to ask everybody to show their appreciation for the panel for their comprehensive presentations and answers to the q&a. Thank you all.
Thank you Caroline, thank you for leading out in our q&a. And thank you, panelists, for being so gracious with your time in the morning session we've had today. We will now break for 10 minutes and when we return, we'll go into our first thematic area that's on access connectivity, and Mr. Emanuel Narokobi will be moderating in the session. Please thank you everyone once again for coming. And our live audience who are joining us on NBC on a lot of streams as well. Please join us in the next 10 minutes then we should be able to proceed with our first ICT summit program. Thank you
Good morning and welcome back to our first day of our national ICT Summit. We're coming to you live. From APEC house downtown Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea. We'd like to give very special welcome to those of you who are joining us from abroad by the Internet. Thank you for joining. We have our live simulcast that's happening on NBC TV and radio as well. And those who are joining us from around our beautiful country, Papa New Guinea, thank you. Thank you for tuning in ICT is everyone's business. That is why we're having this nationalist Summit. And we are going into now our first thematic area for for our discussion in the national ICT Summit, and that is excess connectivity solutions and promoting a more inclusive Internet. And we'd like to give a very special welcome to those who are joining us on our NBC TV radio. We also would like to acknowledge the Internet Society, which is also live streaming this on the pages as well. Thank you. And of course, all our social media pages around the country. Take us to this session. Our moderator is Mr. Emanuel Narokobi from Masalai Communication, and he will take us to our thematic area one, we also have others who are joining us joining us in this discussion. So we give a very special welcome to Mr. Narokobi to take us from you
Good morning, everyone. Secretary I'm gonna head on Minister leave us. Um, so it's um, I think I guess in the 20 years that I've been involved in the ICT space, I'm really quite excited in terms of the direction that we're going with the government. You know, we looking so as we look forward to the enacting of the ICT bill, a lot of work has been done on by the Department of ICT, it's also quite exciting to look at how ICT and how the government was looking at reframing a relationship with with ICT in terms of moving away from a service sort of feature and becoming more of a strategic asset to to ICT and I guess they run as well. And, and as that develops, I guess we can start looking at the at the players that are currently in the in the market. This is probably where that relationship. They are the front end of the ICT industry, how we get the Internet into the country through our gateways. How we get it out to the people. The sales and marketing involve the business models that are involved in trying to get access connectivity and those solutions up there. In terms of in terms of the thematic area that we're discussing today in terms of becoming a more inclusive Internet, Internet that people can afford Internet, people can access an Internet that people can utilize for the lives of their hands, their quality of life. So to join us this morning, we have Mr. Colin Stone, the CEO of Digicel PNG. We've got Mr. Warren Suti, the universal access and services from the universal access and services Secretariat, which is within NICTA. And I believe, Paul Komboi online as well with us, correct? Yes. So you have please do more than welcome to everyone. If you could put your hands together for speakers. We'll begin with Mr. Colin Stone.
Thank you very much. I haven't really paid any day because I know this has been simulcast to people across the nation, some listening to this radio. So I'm just going to talk to you about the industry today. But first of all, I'd like to say good morning to our distinguished guests. The secretary for the Department of ICT, Mr. the CEO for Nikita, Mr. Kila Gulo-Vui. and those online including the industry colleagues that are joining us not only from here on Papa New Guinea, but across the world. Just going to remove my mask because I'm far enough away from other people at the moment. Many thanks to the Department of information, communications and technology, especially the Honorable Minister for putting together today. I think it's important as an industry for us to come together to discuss the challenges the opportunities and the benefits that we can bring As an industry towards ICT and communities within Papa New Guinea. While today we are focused on ICT, I just like to take a moment to thank all the medical professionals across the country, the doctors, the nurses, the volunteers, the health department, and many others who are committed to so much time to battling the impacts of COVID. We know they're working under immense pressure, both from a resourcing and time perspective, to look after many loved ones in one talks right across the nation, and that this global pandemic is impacting so from the staff and management of the GCL Papa New Guinea, thank you all. 2021 accelerates into 2022 I think it's an opportune time for us to discuss the future of the IT ICT sector within the country. Some of the strategic initiatives that the Department of information and communications technology, over time, will implement will revolutionize how the people of Papua New Guinea interact with not only the world, but also with the government of Papua New Guinea and with each other, and that's something to be commended. Before we look forward, it's important to look at us to look at the changes that have occurred over the last 15 years in terms of telecommunications, where we've come from, and that's where we're heading in terms of the ICT sector, increasing connectivity, affordability, and reliable for the people of Papua New Guinea. Many years back before the records of digital Papa New Guinea began, the cost of a mobile phone was exuberant. 500 kina for a phone 150 kina for a sim. And the cool right probably started with $1 sign and not a toy. So how the times have changed. Where Where have we come from? And where are we going? As always the question per address where we are going, it's important to look at and assess where we are now. Much has been discussed in the last 12 to 24 months regarding offline and bandwidth of national networks that still today mainly connect just the beaches. But admittedly, not much has been shouted about in regards to the rural connectivity, and connecting not only the cities, but those on the edge. Those who in the past any service delivery has been marginal at best. Three years ago, the board of the GSL and indigenous health png management team approved a plan a plan to bring digital services like those available here in the cities to the rest of the nation. And we started like any plan, it's had its ups and downs, the impacts of COVID were felt, and the economic factors make things a little bit harder. But we continued with a plan and I'm pleased to say the team continued the acceleration despite those unfair when we look at the themes of what we're asked as a panel to discuss today, I'm proud to say that across the GSL PNG, we've gone to great lengths to support the government's strategy to deliver services to as many people in Papua New Guinea as possible. Let me cover reliability first. Without reliability, I think we all agree that accessibility and affordability ability becomes irrelevant. For liability is not present. If it doesn't work, then it's not worth anything. And just the last three years we as Digicel across the nation have had a capital investment program that is bought new batteries new generators, new solar powers, new solar panels to over 750 sites across the nation. And the team plan to complete all of the Digicel sites across Papua New Guinea within the next 24 months. This was our commitment to reliability. It is working with much improved reliability in rural Papa New Guinea as well as the cities. As we upgrade our towers and the towers send signals to the handsets across the nation. It is one part of the puzzle. Other part is the input to the network power, connectivity to the global information highway. Power as we all know and we struggle with is something I expect probably during today to us feel an impact of even here in Port Moresby and to have that power impact affects people's ability to access digital services. terms of connectivity, I just want to quote some numbers from the month of October almost be three quarters of a full working day 8am to 2pm on a day, lay three and a quarter days again for full day direr five and a half full days. Yes 120 hours within a month. This is the outage time the non availability to get from those places to the international cables and us to the globe with the information superhighway fits service the nation. Is this something that can be used to drive digital inclusion, digital government no not by itself and without reliability and connectivity, the trust and services offered through digital platforms disappears. Well, we understand the issues and the challenges, the wholesale surprise, we sell inputs to the digital network. We have customers, the customers that rely on us a network and only being connected part the time is not accepted acceptable. cables that serve these countries while of great benefit to the nation need to be complimented today to allow to connect to allow you all to feed on the information that can help grow the nation. In the Global Information Highways we talk about. Did you sell today compliment these services when we put that we purchase on a wholesale basis with good old satellite, it's still important. It'll only has an outage time of two hours a month. And so while sometimes the network might be slow, and allowing for connections between friends and families work colleagues spread across this nation, and those who need access to critical infrastructure and services. These we buy connectivity insurance products, we purchase these to try and deliver reliability to the consumers of our products and services. These are costly as the primary services today. Many factors drive this not just availability, roading, access to sites, helicopter availability, security, theft, vandalism, it's not just one input, it's a combination of many, many that are developing. But that's but slower than the rollout of connectivity tivity delivered by mobile tower accessibility. Today, the team have done a great job managing to upgrade the Digicel network. And I commend them on that. And I thank my team right across Papua New Guinea. In the past 12 months, the team as well as upgrading all the solar panels and the batteries and the generators that provide power to those services. They've also increased 4g population coverage from 27%. To today, I'm proud to say over 60% of the population of Papua New Guinea have access to 4g services. That's a mammoth feat in 12 months. Estimates are that the Digi sell network and totality covers around 80% of the population. Let me make that clear that it's not 80% of the land, it's 80% of the people. Because the spread out nature of some parts of Papa New Guinea make delivery of mobile services to an individual difficult, time consuming and costly. We estimate that out. So of the 80% that we cover, about 8% of that nation are in 2g coverage areas. And in the next 24 months, they'll all be upgraded to either 3G or 4g services, increasing coverage of 4g from say 27% to 62% hasn't stopped and we expect to increase that by another 10% in the coming year. As a company that team in the last 12 months have also delivered 45 New rural connectivity sites. That's 45 sites and places across the nation in rural Papa New Guinea that never had access to services 12 months ago. It is something we're proud of and our commitment to Papa New Guinea. But the question arises on why more usage of these fast Internet speeds? Why are we not fully utilized and what are the main drivers that we can see to get people utilizing the little services that are available? Power? A one bang phone today is still the choice of many Papa New Guineans, and the main reason is because of power. There was a GSM a study done a couple of years ago that estimates that the average Papa New Guinea in rural p&g spends between five five keener and five US dollars a month charging the handset. We saw this in two years ago we deployed a program to put 2000 rural solar charging stations out across the nation. Each rural charging station can charge 40 Cell phones at once. This is giving rise to more and more popular New Guineans activating and using digital services. Education is also important. Well good is a fast phone if you cannot utilize even 10% of the capacity of that device. digital gauge occasion is not only how to use the phone, but how to use it safely. Many will have seen the impacts of fake news whether it be political news COVID News or rumors about other people, friends and family. Think it's important and we all know the harm that it can cause and the likes of Facebook and social media. Users need to be part of the solution and not just wash their hands and claim themselves as a conduit of free speech. This is not a PNG issue. This is a global issue. We try and do our part and I want to call out here the CEO of our foundation Serena. A number that makes me smile and makes me really happy when I get to talk about it is 630 630 classrooms the did you sell png Foundation has built in public You're gonna over the last 13 years, we have a commitment to education. We try and do our part. But it's not about just building classrooms. We've also just started our freedom education channel, which by the beginning of next year will provide 12 hours a day of education to all grades of Papua New Guineans within Papa New Guinea, free to access over the digital play box, or through the digital playground application. As a mentor to me once said, A church without God has just abandoned a classroom without a teacher is akin to the same. It is on all of us to look at how we can assist education within Papa New Guinea, and ICT services are key to that going forward. As the services become somewhat reliable, and this excessive accessibility factors are resolved, and the question is also affordability. Admittedly FDG sell like others only operate in the cities, we could have much cheaper prices. But as everyone knows, the cost to serve rural Papa New Guinea is exponential to serving urban pumping again, and often not profitable. But we believe in rural and we have since we launched in p&g, 14 years ago. We believe in meeting and exceeding our covers obligations, which we committed to with Nikita. That was a commitment from when we launched, we continue that commitment. We also believe in not having differential pricing. Although it's more expensive to serve in rural Papa New Guinea, we believe the same pricing should apply to those in rural Papa New Guinea as afforded to those within the nation's capital. pleased to say that we've reduced our effective rates over the last 12 months by 30% 30% decrease in the effective rate of data 30% decrease in the effective rate per minute. We don't shout about this, we just continue to bring products and services to our customers based on the needs of those consumers. First step is an affordability is access device, I'm pleased to say that two months ago, we pushed into rural png one bank phones for as low as 15 kina. That's less than $4.30. Us. Now, I'm not sure in many nations around the world, you can buy a digital device that allows you to connect with your friends and family for $4.30. But we're selling those because we know the initial access point to get people onto this information superhighway. To get families connected is for them to be able to have accessibility. And that starts with the device. And Christmas is coming. So please watch the space in terms of smartphones. We will be launching the most affordable smartphone in Papua New Guinea in the coming period. And that will allow more people to access 4g services, high data speeds right across the nation. Talk about cost. And I think it's important to look at references I saw on one thing tanker was forwarded to me the other day I'm not on this think tank but it was forwarded to me a comparison between Did you sales prices in PNG compared to other other companies prices in Australia and New Zealand. And I welcome those comparisons. It keeps us on our toes. It keeps us aggressive in terms of our pricing. But a couple of things need to be looked at. And that's the input prices of operators in other countries versus the input price of a operator operating within Papa New Guinea. What are these input prices, power, fuel and electricity. I think fuel has gone up something like 30% within this financial year, connectivity to the information superhighway security, something that's important to us as our staff, and then capital build costs. Power. We've all seen the prices go up. I was told yesterday that the prices went up here again in Port Moresby. But we don't pass those to the consumer. We absorb them. Using global benchmarking, PNG is actually cheaper per gigabit than others. But if I look at the cost of our inputs, the price of courses cable today is still 20 times higher than that. What we can do with any staff, we actually increased our staff by almost 100 across the nation. And we implemented what we call a living wage, which is 2.5 times the minimum wage within pop and again, that's a minimum wage for anyone in our in our teams, including our facility staff that helped keep our offices clean. Well, COVID Hurstville are some businesses were forced to lay off we invested we doubled down. And I think that's important because it's not about today. It's about tomorrow and this is what we're here to talk about. The reforms in market structure from being frankly coming. They're not implemented fully wholesale or selling as retail. But we do appreciate nectars drive to regulate the industry. And we work closely with the regulator to be part of those reforms, to be part of those consultations and play our part in the industry, continue connectivity, improve reliability of these inputs that we talked about international connectivity, security power, will allow companies like us and the industry to effectively drop our prices over time happened today. No, but are we committed to it? Yes. In terms of ICT services in other countries, I think one of the things that this was about was how does ICT accelerate growth? If we look at when ICT entered other countries across the world, there was roading was power for the ICT services accelerated the economies. And these building blocks both have economic growth, but also improved affordability. It's like the chicken and egg question. If we as an industry can't connect someone to our service offerings to digitalize the channel to market to interact with the government then we're not doing our job. I would say the p&g ICT sectors delivered services wider than any other service provider within the country. And we're proud of that. And we're proud of our industry colleagues that also make that happen. And I think that's important. We as did you sell as the team of digital who always believe in rural Papa New Guinea, the right to be connected the right to access education. And we as an industry, I'm sure will play our part in accelerating the development of the nation. We look forward to the journey with you all everyone online, anyone here in the room today and everyone across, even if they're not listening. And while we look forward to sharing in that journey, we look forward to continuing something that we've committed to and that is connecting the unconnected, as per one of our brand statements for Digi sell. We as an industry are better together. We as Papa New Guinea are better together. I'd like to thank you all for listening. And I look forward to hearing from the other speakers today. Thank you
A big thanks, Mr. Stone, CEO of Digicel png will now move on to Mr. Naveed Haq, Regional Director for the Asia Pacific region, connectivity and infrastructure and I believe he'll be online.
Yes, I'm here live from Dubai. And this is the power of Internet. I hope you can hear meloud and clear. So let me begin by giving my congratulations to the Department of Information and Technology. On organizing this national ICT summit for PNG, I have some good friends in PNG. One thing I always miss is to visit PNG, which was scheduled somewhere in early 2020. But I hope once the world comes to normal and travel is allowed, I'll be love to visit PNG. As a staff of Internet Society. We have been collaborating and partnering with some of the organizations inside png also involved to deploy the first ever Internet exchange point inside the PNG which has brought more resiliency. And the more better, faster and cheaper Internet to the users inside the png. So we have already strong association with PNG. And I'm very happy to speak with all of you today about connectivity. And if I can see my slides. Let's talk about the power of community networks and connecting the unconnected. Looks like so how we see the things look today. Well, the data is a little old. But still it's very relevant where we see that half of the world population still is offline. There are new and emerging digital divides, especially after COVID-19. Peters, I see that the discussion of digital divide has emerged again. And there's a lot of focus now on demonstrating the importance of the Internet, which is for sure a lifeline. And the need to connect the people is as urgent as ever I was looking some statistics for PNG. And it showed me that the Internet penetration currently in PNG is less than 25% of the population. So, of course I think this discussion and the summit is very timely. And I'm gonna discuss one of the solutions that we've been working on across the globe. We call community networks. So what are the community networks and Next slide please. Governance networks are networks built, managed and used by local communities. These are the networks where we see civic participation, where we empower the people to bring solutions for themselves to deploy a small network that can help them to give access to the Internet or other services, their last mile networking infrastructure built using low cost Wi Fi blueprint, traditionally, some of them are fiber based, and some of them are also utilizing TV white space. There have been some done in Philippines lately and some other parts of the Asia. Community mesh networks are not only deploying infrastructure, they are about the communities and how these networks can be used to improve the people's lives. These networks, you serve, unserved and underserved communities, especially in those areas, which are not financially attractive to network operators. And they are managed on a cost recovery basis. So ideally, these networks these smaller networks are a complementary solutions, providing access to salute to areas where traditional network operators don't see a return on investment. community networks are diverse. They are different sizes starting from connecting 50 people to in some cases 50,000. Up there are different technological setups, they have different purposes, to give access to improve affordability, and bring more greater openness and different governance models as well. We have seen community networks led by nonprofits, they are also cooperative, small businesses where we have seen entrepreneurs coming into this space, and building a small community network and starting their small business. These projects and partnerships have been done across the globe between the governments, nonprofits, Internet, technical community network operators, and also in some cases with the academia. It's like now, as I was saying earlier, they are essentially a complementary solution to last mile connectivity to bring an affordable and flexible connectivity for the communities, empower them with digital tools and skills to improve their life and help achieve the sustainable development goals. This container that you saw in the previous slide is from Murabindi Zimbabwe, where this community network has been deployed in partnership with the local government. One of the key elements of community network is civic participation, you know, the local champions, this guy that you see in this slide is from Azerbaijan. He is an 18 years old boy, and he is a local champion and local network engineer who is running a small community network. And we call them a creator of a community because these people make difference within their community. And they are actually part of that community where they are providing this small Network Solutions looks like. Ideally, there are four stages of development and deployment of community network. First one is engagement with the community. Second one, of course, is the policy to make sure that the existing policy and regulatory framework does allow to deploy these smaller networks then, of course, is the training where we do train people to about networks in the deployment. And this has been also a very big success in India, we are running a barefoot engineer program where equally the females and the male are part of this program. And we have trained more than 1000 engineers, who are now an engineer and they are well equipped to network operations and management. And the last step of course, is the deployment. There are various pillars that needed to perform community networks to deploy the policy and regulatory Of course, the backhaul, which is essential you need the backhaul connectivity to deploy on this network and the last mile knowledge and know how the users and the sustainability next step some of the challenges the network face course financial technical knowledge, inability electicity universal services license from scaling. And in the next slides, I'll just go through support some of the steps and actions that could be taken to mitigate those challenges. The first one is the limited access to the financial resources, the fee for licenses, permits and backhaul connectivity, and then of course on operational expenses, the training the rent, taxes, maintenance and support services. So these are some of the financial and sustainability challenges that community network face. On the policy and regulatory side, we do advocate and engage with the government to consider innovative licensing solutions for community networks, please the requirements, reduce or waive license fee, make available the spectrum bands for Wi Fi. And then also enable an environment for Spectrum sharing where possible. Then moving on allowing tax deductions making funding available in USF or in through grants, promote open standards and also involve community network operators, where they are into the discussions when they are thinking about connecting the unconnected people in far flung and remote areas looks like from the network operators and business entities, we again we discuss with them to recognize CNS as an essential complementary player in the last mile connectivity and engage in partnership to deliver telecommunication services we have a lot of examples where these operators have stepped up and they have recognized you know that those those small gaps or or those areas where the traditional operator don't see a business case, they can partner with these smaller networks to provide the telecommunication services provide backhaul connectivity, shared infrastructure. And in many cases, we have seen them stepping up and providing some funding to the these networks as part of their corporate social responsibility. And as well as offer technical expertise in installing, operating and operating the networks inside the communities. Next slide. Now let me give you some examples of what has happened so far in Argentina that is formally recognized the community network. In Chile community networks can be applied through government funding, which is the telecommunication Development Fund. In Europe, the European Commission has endorsed community networks as a complementary business model in its broadband investment guide. Moving forward, there are a lot of other examples especially from Latin America, we have seen regulators providing lessons exemptions for criminal networks. In India, the Supreme Court recently has hold a spectrum and saying that it can be located on license exempt basis for welfare or social purposes. Similarly, in Canada, Spain and UK as well, we have seen the support for these kind of smaller networks given by the governments or the regulators. But these are some of the places where we as an Internet Society have partner, I've worked with the communities and I'm still working, in some cases with the communities in these countries to deploy and operate a community network. A lot of examples. In next slides, I've shared some links as well where you can get more information. And these this is that slide. You can go to our website. This page will tell you more about our work around communty network. And then of course, partnered with ABC and some other organizations globally. work in this area of connecting and empowering the communities. With that. Thank you very much and I'll be happy to take some questions when the time comes, back to you.
Keep moving. We have to move someone next to Mr. Paul Komboi MD of PNG DataCo with the recent [?]. Over to you paul.
alright Thank you. Thank you, everybody, the panelists, Colin and the rest of the team, the the Secretary, I think, congratulation on setting up the first NICTA World Forum or workshop for the country where there is a very big initiative. It's about time that the industry really be guided by some good policy measures and legislation coming from the ICT department and with the leadership of the minister, and I think the government now and the Secretary, we can see that things are moving in the right direction. Yeah, so for for me, I didn't present or prepare any slides for today, basically. So I'm not going to do any presentation for for you, I was thinking that I will be a panel list only. And we'll be discussing, you know, on this accessibility and connectivity across the country. So. But anyway, I'll talk to some of the points that I've just jotted down very quickly in relation to probably also pricing, I think there's the team, he wanted me to talk about also pricing and certain other aspects in terms of reliability, accessibility, etc, etc, the current reforms that the government is undertaking and so forth. So for the beta code, I think you will understand that it is part of a bigger government agenda driving the industry in terms of telecommunications, delivery in the in the country. And now of course, moving into digitalization. More broader now in terms of the activities that we'll be doing, moving into cloud technology, I cetera. And I think we have been one of the disruptive companies in the marketplace put it this way after the the initial reform liberalisation of the of the mobile market sector that came into place and the introduction of digital into the market. It was unfortunate that what we planned for in the beginning I think in the country or for was for competition in the mobile space, but we did not get that through various reasons. One was obviously the struggle of telecom or be mobile in, in the operations in our day, we're going to be competitive with of course evilly funded that company from overseas that we can understand. So, we don't we those factors come into play in the market, it unfortunately hit the market going to imbalance state basically. So the market to a certain extent, failed poorly. Additionally, there was a private monopoly and it is a private monopoly right now, in the retail mobile space that now entails that the private monopoly has a significant market power in the marketplace right now. So, most of the things in relation to you know accessibility, pricing, affordability etc is determined by those powers that are within held by the most significant market in the industry. I think it is really good for for data core to come in and to the space now give more options for small ICT players, even even a new entrant to come in in the mobile market space and we are dissipating want to come in at this early in the next year to give the competition tried to balance out the market again. Yeah, so that is one of the good things that the government has done. And for for for us, we we are committed in in the objectives, the main objectives of making sure that the price is reduced. The reliability is there. And there is accessibility in terms of high speed connectivity across the country. Of course, not everything is going to be perfect in the beginning, due to various other reasons. And we can go on and on in listing them. I think one of them is obviously we know the reliability of power issues, and that affects everybody. We're not going to go and blame opinion power for that. I think for us internally, we're taking measures to try to do As those issues and some of these, it comes back to us as individual companies to be able to address those issues. And so we're looking at the other renewable sources now to be able to complement to supplement the current issues that we're facing in terms of power across the country. Now, as you will understand, also, we've got the challenges in terms of delivering fiber connectivity within the terrestrial Indian of the country, that we are doing it in conjunction in a more cost effective way with the current electricity provider pingy power using the transmission lines. And obviously, we will face issues as we go along. Because the network, they also its reliability decision control transmission. But then again, like I mentioned, we're not going to blame p&g for, we're going to look for other options that can be able to mitigate those issues that we have. Now in terms of the transmission of the network show. Obviously, the technology is there, we're looking at satellite technology and satellite technologies, you know, which is not cheap, these days. So it's expensive. Also, pricing now on the currencies, around $90. We charging if you're using attributes around $180. us so that is the difference in terms of pricing and those carriers you are using already out there, you will know so, so I don't know why you're probably still using OTB maybe it's because of the reliability that you're talking about. But obviously, that cost, you have to pass it to someone in passing it to the consumers currently, that's why the price is current, Misty, right. So I think there are better ways of restructuring those reliability options for transmission that are there, if there is cooperation in the industry. For us, as an old sailor, our business is based on volume. And currently, we are getting bulk of our volume from most of the ISPs that are out there, not the big carriers. Recently telecom came in, and also gave us some very good volume that we are talking about. But the majority of the volume that is now sitting with currently, digital, which is calling as mentioned as good 80% of the capacity is not sitting right now. So if we get that volume, then we can be able to lower the price continue to lower the price. Our pricing has been regulated by Anita yearly, we go back to them to ever look at our pricing, and then have the discussion on what sort of person are we going to be putting out to the market. And obviously our target, then like I said, the main objective is to continue to lower the price to reduce the barriers of interest for other competitors to come in. And then to be able to give that competitive edge in the retail market for the benefit of the consumers. We're not seeing most of those reduction in pricing from, for example, 101,300 kina per megabit per month, now down to 399 per month, passed on to the consumers at the end. So we have some concerns in relation to that. And we've raised those issues with Anita already. And I think Anita is looking into those issues right now. So I thank you for considering our, our consents. So that those are some of the issues that currently we are going to in terms of what we are doing to be able to help the country to revolutionize eating and provide more affordable, reliable and quality services in terms of digital communication across the country. So just coming back to government reforms, again, the government is now decided to obviously measure telecom and be mobile and a separate article to now manage and own and oversee digital infrastructures in the country. So we will be separated entirely from them. I think that helps also in terms of how we operate and how we do business. We can be fair to everyone that buy from us. So government has also asked us to protect those strategic and critical infrastructure to legislation. And that is a work in progress now that we're working to put through to the parliament. So that is something that we are looking at in terms of In the services that we offering, we've already moved on from only a transmission service provider now to data center and cloud business. As you can see, at the back of my background here, there's our data center, the guru, one of our facilities station. And that is now there and available in we've got already customers that are using it right now to speak. So, we are encouraging are more popular means companies operating in the country to come and talk to us in relation to that service. And we can be able to assist you to provide a secure, reliable data center or cloud services business in the country. So that is basically I think, where we are in relation to our development, we've completed most of the submarine cable around the country already to most of the provinces. The only two provinces that we are yet to connect to submarine cable is tele province. And populate is connected. Unfortunately, we don't have connectivity to populate the town itself, we are working with png power now to get both electricity and fiber from 20 kilometers away from Kicker beach up to formulate Ella province is a bit more difficult. The LNG fiber has been damaged since 2018. And Exxon Mobil has failed in its responsibility to be able to repair that we brought that issue up already with them. And they are looking into it now seriously, to repair that cable. Once they do then we will be able to get connectivity up to Allah province. Now we're sending them through satellite. We're having problems will
speed it up.
Alright, thank you. I mean, I think most of the time has been taken by calling day. So I think it's good that No, no, no, no, that what we are doing in our space, as well to be able to make broadband accessibility available more to Popmoney needs. So like I mentioned, the challenge we're having now is up in the highlands. That's where terrestrial fiber get damaged all the time. And I can I know that done downtime and calling is mentioned and we're not sitting around, you know doing nothing, we're doing our best to repair them. Like I mentioned, bringing in satellite technology now to also provide reliability on those connectivity and transmission links up in the islands. So those are some of the things that we are doing. And I think if you look at other areas around the country, especially the niggly islands, places like Alatau, that is hardly any downtime at all. And hopefully, we're going to reach those targets in the other provinces as long as we continue to work towards developing the national transmission network across the country, and bringing in more reliability on our undersea cable and also terrestrial links. So we we know that the bandwidth will continue to increase, we underestimated the potential for bandwidth in the country. And we saw a rise since 2018. From pre gigs now to on average 23. That is what we are seeing on our network right now currently across the country. So that is within a timeframe of only around three years. So we continue to encourage those retail players that are out there, especially the mobile operators, again, to convert your 3G network to 4g, I think that is where the industry is heading with the cloud services coming on board. And people can be able to utilize a cloud services using their mobile phone from wherever they are in the countries. We not only looking into that we are looking into the security systems also for the entire network, both the core and also the data center. That process is underway right now. And by early next year, we should be able to ever a vendor to be able to work with us to put up a well secured network for the country. And including tying various arrangements and agreements with various agencies like the censorship board, the police, etc. And all the other government agencies including Anita as well on various compliance and regulatory measures that you need to do in terms of the traffic that is going in and out of our country on virtual borders. So those are some of the things we are doing now around the country, we will announce our pricing for Metro fiber network tomorrow through the media, large reduction by at least 150%. reduction. So that is to now drive up more uptake on the retail and especially so with our local SMEs ISPC eusocial. We're working closely with them to be able to take up customers and try to bring fiber to the buildings into the homes of people around the country. That's what we're doing now. There is also going to be FDA announcement, I think, by Anita as well, in relation to those infrastructures that are being declared in reduction in pricing. And hopefully that will be done very soon, I think before, if not in December. So that those are some of the things that we are now working on. And looking at all. I think I'll leave it as it is, for now allow for any questions and discussion, because I think this is a panel discussion. So I won't bore bore you with much of the things today, I need to say now, but respond to any, any remarks, any comments, etc. Yeah, thank you everyone, for listening.
Thank you very much. So the good perspective there from our SOE. And, you know, in parallel with one common from the, from the private sector has given so that's a good roundup of these issues around connectivity. So we'll move on to word now from the UAS Secretariat. So So, I guess, number of people, I guess the general public may be wondering what universal access is and what what universal services are both so. So yes, Warren please, we welcome you to the stage.
Yes. Firstly, I'd like to acknowledge the opportunity here to come and study. thank the Minister responsible and department, the Secretary in the team or fully supportive here. Our Nikka co Q for gracing us with the initial speech make a lot of reference that I will now make reference to and the finance. Thank you. Our good Managing Director, one busy Thank you. powerful CEO, digital, Colin, thank you for the presence here. And others. When Tokyo was basically not only were UAS industry exam but because you kind of ask that question or just give a little bit background is on access for us is part of Nikita Nikita his main role is the regulator of the ICT. Inside the head, there is a part five tweet that says that entitled Nikita implement projects ICT projects that are supposed to help in the economy development on the truly ICT let's were call ourselves UAS or universal access and service. Okay, my personal they Sonia is basically not to bore you with anything but some numbers. These numbers will need to be verified because it's a sought notice I just put up some numbers. We can justify that later. Mr. Stone already said something which I've got sufficient HTML that will fix it up on the coverage. And we'll go to the challenges and then that's it. We'll take on some question. I think the better way to know more about Anita and us is through questions. So, next line. In here, we have connectivity gap connectivity, best summarized in usage and the coverage. Okay, I will talk more on the coverage because this is where our core objective right now, that you said skip is best to be handled by the partnership with the other sectors. Now, snapshot, we have around 1586 towers. This is NICTA's report it can vary from the operator to operator that what I say here is we can verify as we go along out of those 25 cities 5 cities have few or little 2G towers now that 2G responsible about 90% coverage, which I think is on Colin salary is around 80%. Anyway, you can trust the regulator or the player. We have a 10% gap. He will tell you how we can with your support and other sectors we can reduce it. When we talk about mobile broadband, we're talking about 3G and 4g. It's about 69% and 36% coverage. Collins has announced that this 60% increase, I mean at 60% over 40, which we'll have to verify that, according to the numbers that we receive from this mobile broadband is why we are here. This the most appropriate technology to be deployed in developing countries, PNC included to provide a so called E services. This is basically our priority. If we make a big breakdown nine PNG, about 22 provinces, they're all covered. Thank you. Did you sell telecom and mobile, you've done well, in the 32 provinces, we have 89 districts, according to our chord, all at 96 covered 2g 3G, 4g. Now we go down to hell LG cell, LG is local level governments. It's around 325. So if you see the figure there, 298 is already covered. We have a gap open the seven allowances. We covered. We can very fast one round because somebody says they changed some new ones comes in, but according to what we have we ever. That's basically it. If we take 200 to 0109 census, we have around sufficient data summary. I thought all that was there NLG that we can target the 27th Sorry, 27. These 27 Last, not there 2g, 3G or 4g, according to our ICANN so that kind of give us we can tell you where they are upon the discount, and wherever we can partner with to provide the required services. Okay, you see the provinces? The percentages are indicative of the gap, the mobile coverage? Operators, they can question this on a public manner according to what to him. It's around 81% Like, for example, girl, a gap of the 40 mobile. So there's a lot to be done there. And that's what it's supposed to mean. That they weren't supposed to give us those indicated it'll decide which area to target as projects. Okay. So coverage gap, it is summarizing 27 If we are to talk about gap, what gap are we talking about access in terms of the LLD we can go to 27. Or if we are looking for actual population coverage, you see 3G and 4g there, those are the gifts that we can target. According to NICTA's report. Hey, what can be done to reduce the coverage gap? Currently, our priority one is Greenfield or mobile coverage is where we do new hours. Now, if we have 27 ll G's this automatically because our targets are these subtlety by NLCS. That's not L. Right yet or nil. So how can we reduce it Anita is through the UAE secretariat is rolling out its own programs. We'll see the strategy later on building new towers that will be shared. And of course we have sorry, go back a bit. We need to upgrade 5682 towers. We are graded 567 powers will help. Increase en tu tu tu tu EEG and mobile board when figures will change. So that's a good target for Nikita and the SEC, the sector to look at, and weapon in upgrading what we've done so far, since 2018, this is our strategic plan. If you see the service plan, it covers basically the broadband, mobile broadband, the public community networks. That's what ISOC was talking about some community networks, and we have a program for that for ICT utilization and demand to create content. And then of course, the broadcasting. In terms of the broadcasting, we are now ready to try out the A 2d analog to digital in the progress in terms of the projects, what we've done so far is to build into was awarded to Digicel 2014 Thank you desert, you've done a good job there. It was for 2g only. If you add Mr. Gulo speech earlier, we have 2g 3G and 4g. Now it's 5G coming, we are not talking about it, but many of you are talking about which will come very soon. Our experience in voice telephony is providers the challenge is that if you wet what Mr. Gulo said earlier, and CEO for NICTA mention Those are real, real real challenge that we continue. And then we connected the schools, teachers colleges, and he also a partnership programs projects with ITU FAO and other, like local Government cross sector agencies like education, health and 21 we this is 2021. So we the procurement process is now in place. We are trying to put in towers throughout the end. I hate schools. And of course, we have to try out the A to D analog to digital for the first time we want to make it public and the broadcaster's in the effort to migrate from 2g to 3G, there may be problems that to achieve the same thing, but in Nick this tragic plan, it is part of that's why we went on this. So whatever happens you will report it and the next next year. Perseus is very important, we cannot emphasize the partnership. You know, Anita is not the operator. It does not own it regulates the resources. And it mandates the ICT licenses, which provide the services public. So the best we can do is now with our licenses, they are the ones who are licensed to provide services, be mobile, the digital datec data call, etc. This is a snapshot. If you hang on a satellite up there and you look down 2g will look like this. It's just real view. So about 90% You have 3G 69%. And then 40 which according to US statistics and updated here from Mr. Stone, is gone up to 60% is good news. Almost a risk and challenges opportunities. Somebody said the other one there's a risk. There's always one opportunities. We have the list here that is very long. We rely on the expertise and experience of our licensees operators to help solve this. One of the NCAA is a partnership I already mentioned earlier, it is very difficult deploy projects that are not partnered with we've experienced it. Without this we know we've experienced who has done this who cannot do this, but it is a government mandate that we continue to do To access accessibility to address the gap, the usage our partnership without across sectors the education of agricultural land thank you thank you
thank you. Yep. So he kept me before I could stop him so so we'll move on to miss Anju Mangal Um, yeah. Are you online She's the head of Asia Pacific region Alliance for Affordable Internet if not, we can move to Mr. Singh. I think I'm Anju you there?
Yes, I am. Can you hear me?
We can go ahead.
Thank you so much Honorable Ministers distinguished guests. special acknowledgement to Steven, Russell, Chris, Mora, Hera, Kyla, Jack, wonderful digital ICT cluster Priscilla, Winifred, Judy, Judith and PNG women in ICT. and also PNG Computer Society and fellow colleagues. It's such a pleasure. join you today in the first ever hybrid actually png ICT Summit. Well done to SpiderTech, PNG limited and Department of ICT. I've been waiting to be part of this great event. And I thank you all for extending an invite to me. I wish I was there in person right now having all the amazing food and talk with all of you. I want to acknowledge png government for doing an amazing work to provide connectivity for developing the digital transformation policy, the cybersecurity strategy and digital transformation standards. Well done to all and also, it's good to hear that you're focusing on digital Bill government 2021. I also want to take this opportunity to thank the honorable minister Timothy Masiu. Steven, the Secretary and Chris for joining the Pacific Internet Governance Forum in September, the Honorable Minister made a very interesting statement. He said that digital transformation ICT technology, it should build a nation and should improve livelihoods. So we must continue to respect each other, respect our values, but also continue to collaborate and cooperate with each other. And like many of you have said, partnership is very key. And as Steven has said earlier, having open digital government and open web is very important for the citizens of png. So let me introduce you to sorry, let me introduce myself and then belong me Andrew, and I work for the Alliance for Affordable Internet, which is an initiative of the World Wide Web Foundation. And just to tell you a bit about my organization, we are the world's technology sector Alliance, and we work to drive down the price of broadband. And we do this through policy and regulatory frameworks. And we all have the same principle as most of the organizations working on Internet development in the Pacific, we believe in an open, secure and safe Internet for all. A lot of our global advocacy work is based on evidence based research. And we continue to do international regional and national advocacy. Before joining the Alliance for Affordable Internet Web Foundation. There wasn't any focus on the Pacific. We were focusing a lot on the Latin America, South Sub Saharan Africa, other parts of the world, but not necessarily the Pacific. So it's my it's been my duty and privilege to bring all the interesting and great projects to the Pacific. How do we work in member countries? So in each member country, we form a national multi stakeholder coalition. And we identified key barriers to affordable access and we come up with tailored solutions to drive prices down. So we continue to encourage a multi stakeholder model. We work with civil society, private and public sector, academia, youths, we also bring in marginalized groups, women in ICT and various other stakeholders to support policy development and also focus on key initiatives. So just as an example, we work on like, for example, broadband policy. We also support consultations, but when we do the consultation, it has to be very much multi stakeholder bringing in all the different key stakeholders. We continue to to encourage the adoption of ambitious affordability and meaningful connectivity targets, which I will explain further to drive down prices and increase access. And again, as I said, we work with national coalition's and stakeholders to develop policies. And one of the key things that we really do is improving collection of gender disaggregated input sorry, that gender and poverty disaggregated data to track progress, particularly the SDG progress. And as Naveen mentioned, you know, they they do quite a lot of community networks, so we support community network. We also support public Wi Fi access and ensure agenda responsive ICT policymaking and the wider Web Foundation. We focus a lot on online safety, human rights and Internet. We also work on technology facilitated and online gender based violence work. But specifically for AI, which is the Alliance, we tackle the affordability and accessibility challenge and close the growing digital divide. And many of you have already mentioned that when we talk about the digital divide, we should think about, as some of you have said, particularly like the highlands, the rural communities, also persons with disabilities and women and girls in particular. So I'm in collaboration with the International Telecommunications Union, we did a report on connected connecting humanity by 2030, we need around $428 billion to achieve universal access to broadband connectivity by 2030. And a lot of the investment is needed for Sub Saharan Africa, South Asia, East Asia, and also Pacific, which accounts for a population and 50% of the required investments. And we found that connecting humanity broad broadband is predominantly an infrastructure challenge. But infrastructure is not, you know, not just sufficient and as Mr. Arrow from UAS said, it's beyond infrastructure. So we look at complementary initiatives to connect people covered by broadband networks, we look at programs to increase and support device affordability. We look at affordability of data and services. We do digital skills program and content and a special focus on closing the digital gender gap. And we have placed strong emphasis on this. And I like, particularly like the point that Paul de taco made in terms of wholesale pricing and strategy. I think, you know, when he mentioned market imbalance state, it's important that we get rid of monopoly and also create more competition in the market. We got the affordability report every year, it examines the policy and regulatory frameworks that have allowed countries to make broad net access more affordable, accessible and universal. So I'll try to do affordability report explored around 70 for low and middle income countries, and 21 countries from Asia and the Pacific. And we've included Papua New Guinea and Fiji, all our reports are available online. And we talk a lot about you know, how do we migrate the 2g to 3G and to 4g, and this is what has been in the report. So the COVID pandemic has impacted every country in the region. We've had social seeing school and offices were closed. That will complete lock downs. And this has disrupted billions of people's lives. And and I think, you know, access to Internet was so important. And for particularly for schools, to continue learning and also people to work from home. However, Internet services, no Internet access, you know, universal not everyone has sort of benefited from it. So without meaningful connectivity. The true value of the Internet will remain out of reach. And when we talk about meaningful connectivity, we talk about regular Internet access, affordable and appropriate devices, whether or not they need 4g, fast connection and also regular data. So I think you know, Colleen from digital health also mentioned that it's not just about affordability and accessibility, but also about reliability. So these are some of the things that we continue to advocate on site. And and in partnership with UNESCO. We did a joint study on meaningful connectivity, and we looked at the good practices and case studies. So PNG was one of our chosen case study, and we came up with some key findings, which will be iterated by Nikita CEO killer. PNG reform, the telecommunications sector, included liberalisation of mobile services, they established an independent regulator and also started the implemented implementation of a universal access policy. And today, we heard the minister saying that they will be focusing on rural telecommunication and providing infrastructure through UAE UAE S, which is really amazing. And from a meaningful connectivity point of view, I think this is one of the biggest initiative for us. And as Digicel said that, you know, they are providing rural connectivity with solar powered stations, I think this makes a huge difference when we talk about sustainable access, and also climate change in this in this time. And we also want to thank Universal Access Services team, because they continue to encourage rural connectivity. And sorry, broadband, rural connectivity. And one of the things that we are working on is the rural connectivity project, focusing on frameworks and policies, and we will be doing a workshop soon, which I will invite happy to invite you to be part of that it's going to be a virtual workshop. So we allow people to join. So we understand that png faces a lot of challenges. We talked about low broadband penetration, low levels of 4g coverage. So what is it that we're doing to make sure that we, you know, migrate the users from 2g to 4g? And what can we do to ensure that we have a robust national broadband policy. So that's one of the things that we can also help with, in terms of, you know, emphasizing not just a broadband policy, but also rural broadband connectivity. Um, you know, Colin, also talk about is affordability. And I just wanted to mention that it's really interesting to see that, you know, PNG is working towards device affordability. And I think this is really important. We've also done a study which will be of interest to you. And we continue to monitor the progress towards closing the digital gap. So as you can see that, you know, there's, there's a percentage of 60% of women using mobile Internet in the country. This is the 2020 G JSA. Report, compared to the men and so what we are doing for PNG is we're closing the digital divide. So this is my last slide, I promise. So we're working with the Pacific. Sorry, working on the Pacific gender scorecard. So we're working with the digital ICT cluster team, to develop evidence and monitor country progress towards closing the digital divide in PNG. And we're looking at scorecards, particularly in those themes that you can see on online affordability, Internet access, women's empowerment, digital skills, online safety and relevant content. And you know what, I'm not gonna take too much of your time, but I will just have to say that this is being led by Priscilla Winifred, Emily and the team and also crystal, so I'm going to get them to speak more about the work that they're currently doing. So thank you so much. Thank you too much.
Thank you very much. Some great book from Anju and ideas and I just would really like to, I guess, one of the exciting ones Priscilla Kevin. Are you there Priscilla? Priscilla Hello.
Can you hear me?
Yeah, we can go
Alright,
so um, so Priscilla Kevin from the ICT cluster. So she's really a guess. grassroots level with a lot of the entrepreneurs, and many of some of us as well, too. And Robert, but in terms of when we're looking at access and connectivity solutions, these are some of the solutions coming from grassroots coming upwards as opposed to looking at the the big business side of it and as always, so, so Priscilla, please go ahead.
Alright, so I'll try share my screen
Yes, we can see it now.
Alright, so thank you. And thank you to the Department of ICT, Honorable Minister Masui, Steven, the Secretary Steven Matainaho now for the opportunity to participate in this program. We're really excited to share some of the work that we're doing in terms of the ecosystems development through the PNG digital ICT cluster initiative. The initiative was born in 2014, to the European Union project on economic clusters in the oil and countries were piloted. Tom has somewhere PNG and Vanuatu so png pilots in the sector, ICT so we are we are we're going to share a little bit about our work that we've done so far in terms of support for our ICT entrepreneurs and innovators. I'm just going to share a little bit about some key areas in based on the thematic area around X's connectivity, and digital inclusion and infrastructure. Alright, so I just wanted to share on five key areas. Obviously, we've talked a lot about connectivity, Genji is still really challenged around access and affordability of key infrastructure such as Internet syllabi, rural places still on 2g 3G network, which doesn't allow a lot of our population to participate, particularly in the digital economy. The government is working very hard to deliver citizens. I'll touch basically on the first one affordability with quality of service in mind. We did work on a project called a Genji Internet exchange point through that Nick, Drew Nikita, and I think that is currently implemented is cost as well and to keep our local traffic local international traffic bound for international at the cost. That's still an ongoing project. And it's something that may be new. And network of ISPs could actually update us on. We also looked at the currency cable which is ended, which can sell on islands PNG, and also the discussions around a lot of ISPs that are in a startup space, but there is not a lot of incentives to engage some of these ISPs that the last month meaning that they're right at the rural area, but they do not have incentives to actually assist them to roll out those. So So those are some things that we need to look at as well. Um, I also put in here, our country top level domains and I think Russell DECA is here for me. I think the utilization of our ccTLDs is also something that we need to look at as well. To put a lot of our businesses online to have an online presence. I think the Dubai Expo gave us an opportunity to participate. We also need to showcase our businesses online using the.pg extension. Um, the second one I wanted to talk about was just economic incentives for the sector and ICT cluster has been talking about this for some research several years now. We still have to look at tax programs for the ICT sector. We usually compare it to Fiji Fiji has a has a a tax incentive program for the ICT industry. They have a tinea duty exemption for telco startups in the Fiji Fiji economy. So we should also look at something like that for png as well. We also had discussions with intellectual property IP office around intellectual property protection for a lot of our innovators, audits and discussion that's still ongoing with IP and IP or guys, hopefully we can progress that as well as some of the things that we looked at also was a national procurement and investment in foreign direct investments in digital. We need to look at that really cater to local innovators that are developing solutions How do we invest in those in those innovations developed by our local tech talent. Um, the third one is really around human capital and skilled workforce or talent. We can't run an industry without the skilled workforce. And that's something that we're working very closely with the education space as well. We're working with the schools to STEM schools of excellence policy, which was introduced in 2020. And it's currently bridging last time in the college's grade 11, and 12. And it's introducing thematic areas around STEM and technology. We're also looking at introducing computer science fields into grade level intro. And this is really to prepare our workforce for the ICT industry going forward. We also encourage software engineering bootcamps, we set up a program which switchmate them and I think due to copied the program had to close. But what we've seen is that we've seen top sign computer scientists graduates coming from the university participating in a three month Boot Camp, where they were able to get their skills developed on par with the industry. And we've noticed that this competition IDs and IT specialists and gone on to join, you know, banking sectors before the big falls in working in some of the tech projects. And obviously, ICT cluster promotes our annual hackathons, which is really problem solving, using ICT around the UN 17 Sustainable Development Goals. And also we support and promote partners like nsda care, PNG flying labs are doing stuff in kids coding early learners kids code. And I'll speak about the two last points, which is the emphasis around partnerships and programs. Andre mentioned something around the Pacific gender audit scorecard which we're working on, which will highlight the digital skills gaps for girls, women in PNG, what are the obstacles? What are the policy spaces that we can actually get to get more women, more women and girls accessing ICT services are accessing ICT infrastructure as well. I'll just mention through the work that we've done in the last seven years, we've we've actually extended global partnerships. So we're a innovation hub with just the US Department of State Program, global innovation through science and technology. We also have a partnership with UC Berkeley innovation accelerator group, which is to build entrepreneurship education for tech, and sorry for science and technology entrepreneurs. We're also participating in the Geneva 2020 dialogue, which is on global cybersecurity. And we've come to a paper for that. And there's few other programs as well that we work with, including the Brisbane City, sorry, the Brisbane City labs now acquired by Australian Computer Society. And obviously our ongoing work with our domestic partners, Nikita Ministry of ICT and the p&g side of the technology Secretariat as well in terms of the science and technology innovation policy. And one of the last area I wanted to share on was access to finance for entrepreneurs is which is a really big challenge, access to credit. A lot of entrepreneurs have collateral, which is some of the innovations. But when you go for when you go for loan or credit that that innovation cannot be recognized as collateral. So we've started a project with the National Stock Exchange called a defined project. And we're working with various several partners to look at Green financing, innovative financing that can support some of these high tech innovators in ICT industry. Obviously, we know ICT exists in almost all sectors. And one of the three key areas that we're working on in terms of financing is in agriculture, ICT entre ICT entrepreneurs, enterprises and women land. One of the partners that we've signed up recently is with a US based a Boston US based company called underwriter AI which will be used in demonstrating the use of artificial intelligence, machine learning for credit risk assessment for the defined project. But I think that's just in a nutshell some of the work that we've done so far in terms of developing the ecosystem for PNG, and also supporting our tech startups. Thank You
thank you very much priscilla. for some big hand For Priscilla all the good work she's doing in terms of building an ecosystem for connectivity. So we keep moving. We're a bit over time, but we'll keep moving now. So Mr. Nirmal Singh, and the CEO of Digitech. PNG Are you either?
Yes. Can you hear me?
Yes, we can hear you.
Okay. Oh, thank you. Can you see my screen?
Yes, we can see you now.
Thank you. I'll just share my screen. I understand we are running late. But I'll try to finish off with a look at a time as possible. Thank you for the invite. Appreciate that. And also, thank you to fellow speakers, and guests. And people attending. I was going to speak mainly on digital transformation. Okay, it's nice to not okay,
yep, go ahead.
Yep. But having this to some of the previous speakers, I like to comment, especially from this Excel and, and data Co. But what I'm going to present is, it's only possible if we sort out our telco issues first, and the issues of liability, I understand that ACO is doing their best to have reliable. So having said that, we do have five times and there's no backup system in place, a satellite that can cater for it. The reason the price is so high from the ISP or the retail side is, although the pricing has come down a lot from what Paul has said, from 1300 to 300 kina. The issue is for ISPs, since the fiber is not reliable, they also have to pay a higher price with visit backup. And that's the only way we can provide a better service and a better experience to our customers. Apart from the telco Digitech is the largest ISP in the country. We subscribe over one gigabit of data from data co payment. So that's quite huge for just ISP, who's selling only to the customer. Business Sector don't provide the services to public because we don't have the infrastructure to do so. But obviously, in future we will do through our parent group of companies. The other issue I have is communications from data co I mean Paul's that they're releasing a new product, which is the local connectivity via fiber. And the talking with local partners and ISP, the first we knew about it being the largest ISPs, through a customer sending me an email yesterday that Do you know, if this service what the article is offering, which was quite surprising to me, since Data Core has been set up to be a wholesale provider. And yet, it seems that competing with retail players like us and other telcos, the government need to seriously look at demarcation. Where does the wholesale provider sits? Where does the retail sits? If the wholesale provider is competing with the retail sector? How can we actually reduce the price? Because obviously, our services are higher grade because we offer backup and so does the telcos with beset, whereas data comes on the offering fiber. So it's the best deliver service. And we provide SLA to our customers. So I think there's a big concern from all the ISPs I've spoken to, although we compete with each other, but we do speak to each other. Just for an example. I XP was set up in the country by Anita so that all of us could benefit with a caching locally. So the data that is shared within the country is actually from the cache, it doesn't have to go overseas and come back. So you get a bad experience. There's less the tendency. This is Sal is a retail customer, not a wholesale, but they are able to provide a cheaper price for cashing the Google Cash in the country than taco, which beats me because the protocol should be the cheapest because they're the wholesale. So there's some fundamental issues there that regulators need to have a look and implement a framework where we are all playing in the level playing field. And that's important. Now eventually price will come down all if you know there's a third place Coming in the market, which is going to happen by the name of waterphone. PNG, which is next year, early next year. And I'm sure that will drive the price down. Second issue we face in the country is the electricity grid. It's obviously not reliable. So there's a lot of cost of maintaining our diesel generators, maintenance. That's all add to the cost of selling the services to the end user. Once we have a reliable electricity that goes hand in hand with telco and then you'll see that digital transformation happening because we are able to connect the unconnected, which is our rural sector. I'm sure everybody has got that in heart. But the commercial does not meet at this stage. The other issue is, we've seen from NICTA that there's a high uptake of 2g network. Now with 2g, 2g, you cannot deliver digital services it has to be minimum 4g. Especially the handset has to be a smart handset. So if we start changing the telcos are putting money in So changing the 2g to 4g. The question is, can the subscribers in the rural area a fourth of the handset, this is where the government and the nichter has to come in, through us service to provide subsidies subsidized handset, so the role of people can change from 2g to 4g. So this is important. And, again, I think the other issue is that Facebook data is the topology of our country. To maintain that, you may remember that our fiber that was broken flatlay to put mostly in broken almost seven or eight months now, still, it's not been fixed. So what is happening is the data from Les is going to Sydney, then it comes back to what most way. So that's the distance actually to latency. Hence, the experience is lower. If we had a direct fibre from light to Port Moresby, the experience will be much better for the Layperson and also for Port Moresby. But because of the issues we face from earthquake, this breakage will happen. It has happened and it takes a long time to resolve it, to fix it. And it will happen in the future. So what is the solution here? I think the fiber is not a solution going forward, where the government should be looking at is partnering with companies like one web. And Starling, which is bringing cheap fiber with what they call a low orbit. satellite links is as fast as 5G. And that will not going to be affected by natural disaster that we can face in PNG at times, because PNG is part of the Ring of Fire that we all know. So going forward, once that services are available in our region, which I believe is going to happen mid or late next year, you'll see there's a lot of uptake of digital technology plus also you'll see the pricing coming down and and that's where the focus is going to be just delivering services and fiber, it's just going to be impossible because most of the fiber is run through the electricity grid. And when it breaks down, that echo has to call png power to switch off the power that takes couple of days before we go online. Having said all the issues we're facing let's move to digital transformation and how we can benefit with this. Okay, so, what digital transformation basically is using technology innovative technologies, to enhance your services to your customers and to the business model and obviously linking organizations together. So how it will help well basically for telcos or other providers was in service business, it will create new customer experiences talking about 4g 5G which is impending. So we should be looking at what technologies we are, we can implement a service which can improve the efficiencies, recording and also obviously generate new revenue streams. So it's, it's, it should be the best interest of the telcos to invest in these technologies. Because at the end of day, they'll make money they will also improve the lives of png local citizens. Talk the behavior is rebutted. respond to changing conditions. Because, as you know, the the whole ICT sector in the last five years has evolved so much with the introduction of AI, AI, machine learning IoT, there's a lot of interesting devices that's tuning in. So as we grow, I mean getting autonomous vehicle driven by machines not being controlled by human. So all this requires AI infrastructure that can support it. And obviously, a 4g the 5G plays is a key, which reliability service so we can enhance an all as well as leverage from these technologies to provide a better service. So those who try and win digital economy will need to develop and execute a vision for digital transformation. And a vision, I believe the PNG government has started already, which is a great thing. We as service providers and other stakeholders now need to join the bandwagon. In return, they will get better shareholder value. So next is can ecosystem as opposed to delivering products and services can gain the share, which I believe everyone is talking about. And this will come with action. Now manage information more effectively. That will create new new shapes. Now this is important for anyone who wants to grow their business. Plus, if you're investing everyone looks in return on investment. Now we need to create physical level Human Resources model. And this is the key. That is one sector that's not been addressed very well in PNG at this stage. When the 10 was, as you know, the tenant tenant in PNG, is there's not enough graduate coming out in ICT and telecom, which, which is a concern because we have to live from some from expected stuffs. We are always putting training in place. But there is not enough local tenants and I think the government and ICT sector has to really concentrate on building this together with the partnership with the universities optimize business process for speed, efficiency, quality and agility. All this is that will increase your profitability how do we accelerate transformation, it requires you to move outside the process comfort zone, which is started already in PNG, everyone's talking about it. We have to cultivate tomorrow's IT talent today. Which means we have to start training stuff. From a young age. I've seen Priscilla talking about coding at kids. And that's excellent. We have to start the school, build it up to the RTO. And also to the rest level. Deliver the technology the way the business wants. And that's important. Brilliance continuous transformation. So what's happening now with a mobile, the social business, this is all being linked up. You need system to analyze. There's so many millions of data going through all the time.
Sorry. Can you hear me? Hello? Yeah, can you hear me?
Yes, we can hear you. Okay, so
thank you. If you could speed it up a bit. Sure.
I'm for the five minutes, I think. Okay, so this aspect is where technology will come. And there will be sensors that can be put on the tires that will give you information to your car, or better driving information. You'll be looking at cells that we wear on our hands, that gives you a heartbeat of this impending problem with your health, how much calories you burned. And you have your vehicle and your mobile. So all this technology is going to play in the next generation of security. Now, having said that, we all the challenges, the major challenge that will come to us will be security. So we have to be mindful today's firewall is not going to cut the what we doing what we need to look at firewalls that has got aI built in, and also machine learning and there should be a continuous monitoring of our logs, cm that will help and protect our network. So these are some of the innovation session that's going to take place once we build up our 4g network and 5G network. So we are filling the transit already by 2020 to 60% of the devices will interact with intelligent system and machine learning. And that's we've seen it already, and there should be, the whole ecosystem will be redefined. So, for every digital vision is a unique journey. So it's important where we start, I think the government of png has started already, we started at different points, there'll be different outcomes, we should set up the scope, and our design, we want to end up so I believe in the end, funding this. And where we want to be at the end. The biggest issue we're facing is aging infrastructure, which is unplanned, unprecedented urbanization, people moving from rural to centers like Port Moresby and cities, declining public budgets, and obviously environmental and sustainability, we cannot just build and build and do not think about our environment, and what we're going to preserve and give it to our future. So sustainability has to be important as part of the growth. So these are some of the challenges we will face in the coming years. So what we need to do is connect the unconnected for an inclusive digital economy. And all this is only provided with better telco coverage, and electricity. So you can see how we can improve the lives of our people. What is the deep transformation, as you can see, there's so many different systems that we can interconnect. And that will start from a digital ID that we can do using the technologies that are in the market at the moment. And some of them are blockchain technology, where we can trade one ID for a person that can use all the services of the government, tooling, the banks, the police, whatever you want to connect with just one login. I'm almost on my left leg. This is just a scenario what we can do with our hospital system. Where we are at the moment is smart services, smart contract services. Where we need to be is at the end by interlink all the resources, all the records, all our services government provider into one service, where the public can all log in and interface and share the records. For example, if something happens in a hospital in the rural side, by the time the patient comes to Port Moresby is a major issue, the request doesn't arrive, the government had the doctors had to start again from scratch, we have to be interpreted. So all the all the previous diagnosis can be shared, and we can provide a better service to the community. Thank you and for listening as one over by time sorry about that topology. But thank you have any questions? As you know, Digitech is here to help innovate our customers, you can always contact us be data center services be technology driven, innovative solutions, we are here to help. Thank you.
Okay, thank you for watching, CEO Digitech. I'm so going to move into a video from John Garrity among the ITU last mile connectivity solutions toolkit. So, unfortunately, we've run out of time for any questions so we're going to go straight to the video and then we'll be breaking for lunch.