Page 25 - Islands Business May-June 2022

ICT

ICT KEPT US TOGETHER

By Dionisia Tabureguci of APT’s work and service to its members, which include a
number of countries and telecom companies in the Pacific
The Pacific Islands Telecommunications Association’s (PITA) region.
annual Business Forum & Expo 2022 met in what PITA Vice Tonga’s volcanic eruption early this year was particularly
President and CEO of Vodafone Cook Islands, Phil Anderson highlighted as underscoring the need for disaster readiness
called “a bit of an experiment.” and planning.
Outgoing PITA president and FINTEL CEO George Samisoni “When I was asked to say a few words about Tonga, what
said while it was good to see everyone face-to-face again af- came to mind is a conversation that we’ve had for a long time
ter three years, the world was not out of the woods yet with at the PITA community and that is disaster recovery or busi-
COVID-19 still around and the current monkeypox outbreak ness continuity,” said Robert Suber, Managing Sales Director
and the Russia/Ukraine war posing new threats. Oceania at Intelsat.
“COVID has really changed things in terms of what digitali- As a communication blackout hit Tonga immediately after
sation can provide,” he said. “It’s really ICT that has kept us the eruptions, Intelsat (operator of the world’s largest inte-
stitched together and in Fiji we’ve experienced a huge in- grated satellite and terrestrial network) in cooperation with
crease in EFTPOS transactions, mobile money and ATM trans- Telstra and Spark, deployed emergency communications ser-
actions. And one thing that’s really keeping the Pacific islands vices to support humanitarian aid to Tonga for Digicel Tonga
moving apart from the loss in tourism is the remittance. And and Tonga Communications Corporation.
we are very thankful to the people overseas who have been “It’s something that gets flagged very, very often. We’ve
sending money back home to their families.” had cyclones in Vanuatu, the terrible situation now in Tonga.
This year’s agenda broadly focused on how COVID-19 Two years prior to that, in Tonga, we also had a cable break
impacted the industry and how it is responding to the more via a ship dropping anchor. So, it’s not about preparedness
frequent and stronger incidences of natural disasters in the just for natural disaster, also man-made disasters,” Suber
Pacific region. said.
COVID-19 had a positive impact on the ICT capabilities busi- He revealed insurance companies are increasingly reluc-
ness. tant to insure against natural disasters in the Asia and Pacific
“Many businesses that were reluctant to adopt digital tech- region given its now infamous disaster-prone reputation, and
nology were compelled as a result of survival during COVID. that any willingness to insure also came with hefty premiums,
So, we saw the rapid take up as businesses pivoted to better making disaster preparedness a daunting cost burden that
operating models, pushing adoption of digital technology and telecom companies should carefully factor into their planning.
now it’s a challenge for the telcos to actually make that avail- The point was also raised by Secretary-General of the
able and roll that out as quickly as possible,” said Anderson. Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat Henry Puna in his keynote
“So we saw, probably a generational change in terms of address to open the event.
take up and momentum. And the challenge now is to maintain “Whilst some countries are serviced by many submarine
that momentum.” cables, countries like Tonga have the lone undersea cable that
Disaster readiness will keep telcos on their toes, with connects the country to the rest of the world; and this was
trends speaking volumes of what to expect. damaged during the eruption,” he said.
“The total number of disaster events which happened in “This revealed the huge financial and social consequences
the past three decades in the Asia Pacific region is far bigger for the country and underscores the importance of full secu-
than other regions. Even compared to the second biggest rity and redundancy. I believe this is an important lesson for
region which is Europe, the Asia Pacific region has more than future investment in ICT infrastructure in our region. We have
doubled. It is also leading in terms of deaths by natural disas- to factor in worst-case-disaster scenarios into our infrastruc-
ters. So if you compare by regions, the Asia Pacific region is ture investment plans to ensure they withstand the most
the biggest region which is affected,” said Secretary-General severe disasters,” said Puna.
for the Asia Pacific Telecommunity (APT), Masanori Kondo.
Disaster management and preparedness is one of the pillars editor@islandsbusiness.com

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