GIFF JOHNSON
The briefest amendment in the history of the Nitijela could have an outsized impact on the Marshall Islands.
It is a one-word proposed amendment to the National Telecommunications Act that was introduced Tuesday this week by Nitijela Member David Paul.
The one word change proposed by Bill 66 for the NTA Act is to delete the word “exclusive” from the law that grants NTA monopoly status to run telecommunications in the Marshall Islands.
The law currently gives NTA “exclusive right” to manage and operate domestic and international telecommunications services in RMI. Deleting the word “exclusive” would make it possible for other companies to engage in the Marshall Islands telecommunications market.
Paul’s introduction of Bill 66 follows on last week’s public hearing into Resolution 57 that calls on the RMI government to push forward with the World Bank-supported reforms in telecommunications, including opening up the RMI to telecommunication competition.
Taken together, these two pieces of legislation suggest renewed momentum for making changes to the status quo telecommunications system.
The FSM reportedly recently went through a similar change and consumers and businesses in FSM are now able to purchase satellite internet country wide for as little as $50 per month.
In the view of a local businessperson: “FSM Telecom who, like NTA, had a state-controlled monopoly until recently, is still in business and, in my opinion is stronger as a result. Allowing satellite providers into RMI will help to allow people to work remotely from outer islands and possibly help stop the out-migration from outer islands as well as provide emergency backup in case of another fiber outage like we had a few years ago.”
Meanwhile, the Marshall Islands experienced a five-day period of intermittent Internet service starting from late Thursday last week.
The problems occurred soon after a several hour Nitijela public hearing last Thursday debated the merits of a resolution supporting a private operator to take over telecommunications service in RMI and other reforms — unfortunate timing for the National Telecommunication Authority and those making the case to put off the World Bank-funded reform program.
Friday morning, NTA began issuing what would become a series of text messages alerting customers to the problem: First it was “intermittent connections,” which became “intermittent disruptions” in internet service.
As NTA IT staff worked to resolve the country-wide problem, it led to things like customers being advised to reset passwords for their NTA self-care application. New passwords were subsequently issued by text message to all customers using the system.
As the intermittent service — affecting both home/office dsl and 4G service — continued into Saturday, NTA advised customers who were still having problems to bring their modems into NTA to be “reconfigured.” This resulted in dozens of people crowding into its Delap HQ Saturday afternoon to get their modems back in action.
This segued into major 2G and 4G network maintenance for Ebeye customers late on Saturday that disrupted service while IT staff improved the system.
Monday morning brought news of further “urgent maintenance” on the 4G network for the country. After several days of spotty service, 4G was off most of Monday while NTA staff worked to fix the service. As it did on Saturday, NTA also announced Monday morning that it was again performing maintenance on Ebeye’s 2G and 4G systems.