Where is Papua New Guinea in Information Communication and Technology?

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Here in Papua New Guinea in terms of ICT expansion, there is still a long way to go.  Papua New Guinea's landmass is parallel to California's. Their population is at only 7.3 million.  However, it was reported that only 50% of the population has sim cards.   Mobile communications availability is expected to cover 100% of population as communication companies expands its communication towers across the countryside, hence great challenges are present in expanding and maintaining communication infrastructures.

Let me share few instances in relation to the above, when my husband's team was rolling out a telecom project expansion in the remotest of the remote areas here in Papua New Guinea by putting up microwave discs and cell site towers, I can never forget the strain he suffered in managing this specific project.  His team on site composed of Fijians (people from Fiji) are being harassed several times by village people where they were putting up the cell sites.  At some point utilities and machines are being stolen from the sites.  There was one instance that village people put a road block going to the towers so as the working team could never enter the premise.  Another was when a property owner was asking for a storage fee when the working team left few of their items on site and they had to pay money like a ransom so they can get their stuff back.  Worse of which was when they were held captive by the village people and were not allowed to leave the place for days until a compensation was given to them for using the space or the land.  Clearly, they evade to realize the essentials of putting these towers in their community so as to innovation, and consequently progress and development will pass on to them.

Further, price of broadband internet usage here is ridiculously high which is another restraining component in achieving success in ICT expansion, coupled with the fact that majority of people here are poor.  For 1.5gigabytes of download use(yes, there is no such thing as unlimited internet here), I will have to pay P1200 pesos.  For locals, this is already a vast amount of money to survive them two or three days of daily meals.  However, the silver lining in this unpopulated and unsaturated internet traffic, is its significant speed using LTE technology in mobile.  Relatively faster download and upload in comparison to Marilao Bulacan using Smart's unlimited broadband.

Truly, innovation is transformation.  Hence, ICT development must be pressed by the government beyond the limitations.