THE COMPANY

Background Information

Background Information
Management and Employees
Analogue Mobile Phone System
Digital GSM Mobile Phone System
Internet Gateway
Milestones in the growth of PMC

Pacific Mobile Communications Company Ltd. was incorporated in Papua New Guinea in October 1995 as a wholly owned subsidiary of Telikom PNG.  The company was formed for the purpose of Operating and Marketing Value-Added Tele-Communication Services such as the Cellular Mobile Phone System and the Internet Gateway.

The company commenced with a staff of only 8 employees operating from a small office in the Telikom Headquarters (Telikom Rumana) building.  In early 1996 a sales office was established in the Garden City building at Boroko. Additional Sales, Accounting and Technical Staff were employed as the Mobile Phone Business grew and the Internet Gateway Service was introduced.  In addition to the sales office at Garden City, the financial section was still operating from Telikom Rumana at Waigani and the Technical staff from Haus Technology at Boroko.  This fragmentation resulted in operational inefficiency, and in 1999 the decision was taken to relocate all of the Company's Operations into a single building in a central location. PMC moved into its present leased premises along Waigani Drive in January 2000.

Management and Employees Top

PMC has undergone four changes of Management since it's inception in 1995. The company at present has a staff of 35 permanent employees, of which one is an expatriate while the rest are PNG citizens.  In addition PMC has one Telikom seconded officer in the GSM Project Management team.

Management - 5 positions (one vacant)
Finance - 9 positions
Sales & Marketing - 14 positions
Technical Services - 7 positions

In addition to the Port Moresby office, PMC operates a small sales office in Lae, which is also in leased premises with two officers.

Analogue Mobile Phone System  Top

PMC's Analogue (AMPS) Cellular Phone System went into Operation in January 1996, initially in Port Moresby and Lae only.  The system was supplied by Stanilite Electronics of Australia and uses the same AMPS cellular technology that was in use in Australia and New Zealand before their conversion to GSM.

The system was expanded in capacity and coverage areas during 1997 and 1998 to include Mt. Hagen, Goroka, Lae Telikom College and Madang.  Network capacity was 172 traffic channels operating from 15 cell-sites.  As of September 2001 the Analogue Cellular system had 4,327 active subscribers of which 85% are in the National Capital District and 15% in the other centres.

The analogue service was decommissioned on the 31st October 2003

Digital GSM Mobile Phone System   Top

In August 1998 a contract was awarded to Telrad Telecommunications of Israel for the supply of a GSM900 Cellular Mobile Network. Equipment to be supplied by Telrad was either manufactured by Nortel or produced under licence to Nortel.  Initial coverage areas were to be the same as the AMPS Analogue Network (Port Moresby, Lae, Mt. Hagen, Goroka and Madang).

Installation commenced in February 2000 and by June 2000, installation was completed in Port Moresby.  At that time, the system was operational and capable of being put into service in the NCD but required an upgrade to the billing system before carrying commercial traffic.

Negotiations between PMC, Telikom and Nortel were successful and the contract was re-assigned after financing for the remaining contract payments was confirmed. Installation in the other centres including Lae, Goroka, Mt Hagen and Madang commenced in August and were completed in October 2002.

GSM is a vastly superior technology than the existing analogue and is the most widely used digital cellular technology in the world.  Customer take-up increase considerably and exceeded the current analogue figures because the system offers the following immediate benefits such as:-

  • Improved Call Performance (fewer dropouts and better Audio Quality)
  • A diverse and personalised range of products and services (eg. Short Message Service, greatly increased talk and stand-by time between battery charges compared to the analogue)
  • Technical compatibility with the networks of overseas service providers thus enabling international roaming that is to be eventually launched soon.


     PMC launched the GSM system at the Crown Plaza hotel with the pre-paid service on 31st April 2003 with commercial traffic on 01st May 2003.  The analogue system was capable of post-paid service only, and the stringent credit checks that accompanied the service resulted in penetration of only a small proportion of the potential market. The GSM system offers pre-paid service as well as post-paid with several user plans, which will permit access to a much wider section of the market. Post-paid, SMS and International Roaming will be available soon.

  • As at the 15th of December 2003, there are 17,700 customers.

    Internet Gateway   Top

    In 1996 Pacific Mobile Communications commenced provision of the Internet gateway service in PNG. AT&T Easylink Services was contracted to implement the Internet Gateway for PNG in May 1997 with an initial bandwidth of 256K under the Network name of Tiare providing all the International Internet connectivity between PNG Internet Service Providers and the rest of the world.

    PMC is a Gateway Bandwidth wholesaler under "TIARE" brand and leases bandwidth as a product to the Internet Service Providers (ISP) who distribute directly to the customer level. PMC is continuing to look at better ways of providing the service. PMC also offers a 16-line Rotary Dialup Access for its internal customers including Telikom.

    PMC owns the domain name tiare.net.pg and is a secondary Domain Name Server for all .pg domain names. This enables PMC to apply for allocation of Class-C Internet addresses for PNG users from the Asia Pacific Network Information centre (APNIC is the Controlling Authority for IP addresses in the Asia Pacific region).

    Growth of PNG Internet traffic has been considerable and in a little over four years, PMC has expanded its International bandwidth from 256 Kbit/s to 6,080 Kbit/s. Internet traffic will continue to grow as more and more people discover and take advantage of the readily available information at their fingertips.  Currently, traffic is carried over four separate routes, two via satellite from Optus and one via submarine cable from REACH (formally Telstra) Australia. This provides diversity so that connectivity is maintained automatically in the event that one link fails.  In order to keep up with the demand, PMC plans a further upgrade via a fourth 2M with Reach before the end of January 2004. In October 2000, PMC commissioned a proxy server that proved very successful with the elimination of repetitive data transfer producing 25% improvement in bandwidth efficiency on the international link. In the fourth quarter of 2000, PMC and Telikom negotiated a reduction in access charges from the overseas carrier that was passed onto the Internet Service Providers (ISP) in December 2000. This represented an across the board decrease of 30% in the ISP charges and at the same time a new price model was introduced. There are currently four ISP’s in PNG and these are Daltron Electronics, Datec (PNG), Global Technologies and Online South Pacific (Data Nets). All of the ISP’s are local companies and have their major operations in Port Moresby. Only Global Technologies and Datec (PNG) have offices in Lae.

    Milestones in the growth of PMC   Top

  • In August 1995, a Contract was awarded by Telikom (PNG) to Stanilite Electronics
    for Supply and Commissioning of an Analogue Cellular Mobile Phone System in PNG
  • Pacific Mobile Communications was incorporated on 26th October 1995.
  • The Analogue Cellular Mobile Phone System was put into partial service in December
    1995 and fully commissioned in March 1996 – initial coverage areas were Port Moresby and Lae only.
  • May 1997 the Tiare Internet gateway was put into service with an initial capacity of
    256 kBit/s from international Internet carrier AAPT - Australia.
  • September 1997 analogue cellular service was expanded to Mt. Hagen.
  • May 1998 the Internet Gateway capacity was increased to 512 kBit/s.
  • March 1998 Analogue Cellular Service was expanded to Goroka.
  • July 1998 Analogue Cellular Service was expanded to Madang
  • August 1998 a contract was signed with Telrad Telecommunications for Supply and
    Commissioning of a GSM Cellular Mobile Phone System.
  • December 1998 the Internet Gateway capacity was increased to 1,024 kBit/s.
  • February 2000, Installation of GSM Mobile Switching Centre (MSC) commenced at Ela Beach exchange.
  • February 2000, International Internet carrier was changed from AAPT to Optus while still at 1,024 kBit/s.
  • June 2000, GSM cell-site equipment was Installed and Commissioned in NCD.
  • August 2000, the Internet Gateway capacity was increased to 1,984 kBit/s.
  • September 2000, Negotiations were held with Optus to reduce the Internet carrier charges.  This took effect from December 2000 and an overall reduction of 30% in Internet charges was passed on to the PNG Internet Service Providers.
  • October 2000, PMC Installed a Proxy Server at the International Internet Gateway Router to improve efficiency of the link.
  • July 2001, The Internet gateway capacity was increased to 4,032 kBit/s via an additional satellite route from Optus.
  • August 2001, The Internet gateway capacity was increased to 6,080 kBit/s
    via a submarine cable route from Telstra.
  • December 2001, PMC entered into a Maintenance Support Contract for the Internet Gateway with IAGU Networks of Australia.
  • March 2002, REACH (formally Telstra) migrated into a new age Global Internet Access
    Platform facilitated by Reach Networks (China) in conjuction with Telstra (Australia) on March 11th 2002.
  • May 1st 2003, PMC launched the GSM system with the Pre-paid system with a customer base of 5,000 by early June and 17,700 by mid December 2003
  • October 31st 2003, AMPS system Decommissioned


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