A WORLD Bank-backed push to connect one of the Pacific’s most scattered countries has driven a 99 per cent drop in entry-level fixed broadband prices.
At the same time, the move has lifted internet use twenty-fold since 2014, according to a World Bank Group brief.
Launched in 2014, the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) Connectivity Project has extended submarine and fibre links across the FSM’s 600-plus islands, while also overhauling regulation and opening the market to new providers.
The World Bank said the project now reaches 88 per cent of the population, with women making up half of beneficiaries, as digital services spread into remote communities that were long cut off by geography and poor connectivity.
“Internet use rose twenty-fold,” the brief said, adding that entry-level fixed broadband prices fell from $USD65 to $USD0.78 per Mbps per month between 2014 and 2025. Mobile broadband prices dropped even more sharply, from $USD705 to $USD30 per Mbps.
The country, spread across 2.9 million square kilometres of ocean, had relied heavily on slow and costly satellite links.
The World Bank said new submarine infrastructure now connects Yap and Chuuk states through more than 1,500 km of fibre optic network, including the 1,200-km Chuuk–Pohnpei Cable and the 316-km Yap Spur, which links into the SEA-US cable to Guam.
Satellite services now support Kosrae and remote outer islands where fibre is not viable, creating what the bank described as a more resilient system that combines cable and satellite links.
The project also opened the market to competition. New laws created an independent Telecommunications Regulatory Authority and an Open Access Entity, paving the way for providers including Kacific, Starlink and iBoom, the brief said.
“Market liberalisation and the introduction of competition is a difficult transition and takes time,” the World Bank said, arguing that sustained engagement was needed to build institutions, technical capacity and long-term political commitment.
The next phase, under the Digital FSM Project approved in 2020, will expand fibre-to-the-premises rollout and support digital government services, including digital ID and payments.
