Papua New Guinea - Telecoms, Mobile and Broadband - Statistics and Analyses

Papua New Guinea - Telecoms, Mobile and Broadband - Statistics and Analyses

Independent Consumer Competition Commission concludes inquiry into Papua New Guinea’s broadband market

Broadband prices are extremely high in Papua New Guinea, meaning internet access remains out of the reach of the majority of the population.

The ITU’s ‘Measuring the Information Society Report, 2018’, found Papua New Guinea to be one of the most expensive markets in the world, in terms of broadband prices (ranking it 157^th out of the 187 countries surveyed). Only around 22% of the population is connected to the internet, falling far behind the targets recommended in the country’s National Broadband Policy, which was drafted in 2013.

In the fixed line segment, prices are driven by factors including the high costs of network deployments as well as a lack of sufficient competition. Mobile broadband, meanwhile, is gaining traction as a cheaper, more easily accessible alternative, buoyed by operators’ expansion of 3G and 4G networks in recent years. However, costs in this segment are also high, relative to the low-income base of consumers. A deficit of submarine cable infrastructure also weighs on the country’s prospects for cheaper international bandwidth.

In April 2022, the Independent Consumer Competition Commission released the findings from its preliminary inquiry into Papua New Guinea’s broadband market. The inquiry was initiated due to consumers’ complaints about the prices for internet services in the country.

Issues raised by the inquiry include prolonged outages in connectivity from the state’s wholesale data service provider Dataco, as well as high wholesale prices provided by Dataco.

In 2022, the National Information and Communications Technology Authority is also expected to launch its own inquiry into the retail broadband market.