Vint Cerf urges Pacific Islands to collaborate for Internet access

Stuart Corner
Wednesday, 04 June 2008 07:45

IT Industry - Strategy

Vint Cerf - Internet elder statesman and now a vice president and chief Internet evangelist at Google - has urged the administrations of Pacific Island nations to collaborate to boost Internet access via satellite.

In a video posted on YouTube, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHO9VWUXDlA Cerf says "Access to Internet is such a huge challenge in the Pacific...we are forced to make use of satellite which is not inexpensive and it has been my belief that a collaboration to make bulk purchase for access to satellite capacity with landings in the various islands could be very beneficial."

He added: "The variations [in access to Internet] in the Pacific Islands are very wide but nothing is more important than getting all islands online and actively participating. It enables a local island economy to reach out and take advantage of parts of the world were Internet is already actively in use, You can create opportunities for work on the islands.

The video was produced as an invitation  to the forthcoming annual conference of the Pacific Islands chapter of the Internet Society to be held in Rarotonga in the Cook Islands in September 2008. And Cerf suggested that the potential collaboration should be pursued as part of the discussions at PacINET 2008.

Meanwhile, UK based conference organiser Informa is hosting, in Sydney in July its  inaugural Oceania Com Telecoms Conference examining How telecoms services among the 30 Pacific Island nations and territories  can be improved.

Informa notes that access to basic telecom services is relatively expensive, that less than half of all Pacific Islanders have a phone, and generally have only one supplier for any particular fixed, mobile or Internet service.

However, this lack of reliable fixed infrastructure combined with cheaper installation costs has enabled mobile services to make significant inroads into the market and, it says, several island nations are upgrading satellite links to outer islands, installing wireless broadband and upgrading fixed-line broadband capability, with some rolling out  ADSL2+. Details at