Solomon Islands gets second mobile network, from Huawei

Stuart Corner
Tuesday, 31 August 2010 15:13

IT Industry - Deals

Bemobile, the Solomon Islands' controversial second mobile operator has launched services on its Huawei built network.

Huawei claims to have built the network "in record time" saying: "The entire deployment, including the physical construction of 2 core network buildings and the 20 greenfields base station sites, was completed in under 12 weeks."

Bemobile should be pleased but appears to have been dragging its heels. It was required to have the service operating with 25 percent population coverage by 18 June, according to loal newspaper, Solomon Star, and was fined $US1.5m for failing to meet that deadline.

The paper also reported telecommunications commissioner Nicholas Williams, saying he had given Bemobile an extension until 30 August and would impose a further $US1.0m penalty if that deadline was not met. According to Huawei's press release Bemobile missed it by a day.

Bemobile was named in December 2009 to operate the second network in competition to incumbent, Our Telekom. Islands Business reported at the time that the unknown Bemobile - a subsidiary of Telikom PNG - had been picked for the 15 year licence over two others one of which was Digicel - a well established player with mobile operations in many small developing nation markets.

When it won the licence Bemobile was not even a registered business in the Solomon Islands. "Business registration is a pre-requisite. It is a legal requirement. Any foreign company wanting to conduct any type of business in Solomon Islands must first register with the Foreign Investment Board," one official told the Solomon Star.

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