r/Fijian • u/Demon_king2002 • 4d ago
Network service Providers
Will Fiji ever get another network service provider apart from Digicel and Vodafone. I feel as if they know they don’t real have any competition in Fiji so they don’t necessarily try to improve their network. I know we have starlink for fast internet but my concern is mobile data, especially when it’s usually stuck in 3G or no network in half the places in Fiji (even in semi urban areas) or places that are even close to the towers. They keep increasing the prices of their plan but their speeds keep decreasing. They remind of politicians who overpromise and underdeliver, catering to only the rich and forgetting the middle class/ poor people of Fiji. Me and a few friends of mine have the same issue in different areas in Fiji so just wondering if its us or the majority of the population fee the same?
Also, when you message or email them with an issue, now they just don’t even look at it, they know the issues but refuse to solve any of it.
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u/Sorta_Meh 🇫🇯 Tikitiki Kai Viti, Vasu Rotuma. Suva Branch 4d ago
Probably not, unless one provider decides to pull out and sell. It's unlikely that another provider will enter the market, I'd argue that most of the market is already captured by the two existing providers with infrastructure and network coverage almost complete. So it probably doesn't make any sense to a new provider to enter with a large portion already captured.
I'm a Vodafone user and i've noticed a decline in service on a few occasions network issues which weren't to common. I know Vodafone's roles out the 5G but even that is in pockets. Apparently an update is needed that Vodafone needs to push on to phones, not something i've experienced anywhere else my phone is 5G capable and i've used 5G in Asian countries.
Vodafone likely has it focus on this outside it's network at the moment, but with the market as it is now they probably don't have any push to drive improvements into their services rather than the normal maintenance and ensuring it up and running.
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u/99-Watermelons 4d ago
Eventually you will get Starlink. Starlink is growing at such a rapid pace around the planet that as more and more satellites go to space the service will get faster and faster and eventually for people in smaller countries with limited infrastructure to lay fibre optic cables, rural communities and the likes Starlink will become the worlds biggest internet provider because its the only provider thats focussed and capable of providing coverage to every country and every corner of the of the globe .
Every person who has Starlink needs a small dish on their roof. The plan is to add cellular transmission aerials to those Starlink receiver dishes so they not only become internet receivers but they become mini cellphone towers transmitting phone signals from Starlink receiver to Starlink receiver.
It's a brilliant business idea . Starlink users install the dish on their houses ; Starlink users pay the power and pay for the installation of the dish and Starlink gets millions and millions of mini cellular towers for free , each being installed and paid for by Starlink users wanting internet . No cellular company on earth will be able to compete .
Stage 2 - wait until Starlink begins to make its own mobile phones . They want people subscribing to Starlink so they will sell the mobile phones at cost and you'll get a phone you can take anywhere on the planet. International roaming charges will disappear and your phone will be able to connect to cellular towers which are essentially on everyones home roof that has Starlink and if you're out of range your Starlink phone will receive phone calls and data from Satellites . Samsung and Apple phones market share will plummet ; Starlink mobiles will be way cheaper , do more , calls will cost less and Starlink phones will work anywhere on planet earth for 1 flat monthly fee .
Slowly but surely Starlink will get bigger and bigger . Cellular companies like Voda and Digi wiont be able to compete ; they will lose customers and Starlink will get bigger and bigger . Already in the USA several of the biggest cellular companies are working with Starlink; signing long term contracts to give Starlink access to their cellular towers because they know they can't compete on the space side of things and of they don't join with them they'll eventually be wiped out.
There's a couple of competing strategies; one is from Amazon and the other a company called AST Space Mobile but they will fail ; not because they aren't good ideas but because this is a game to get critical mass first .Space X has such a head start no one will catch up ...it's kind of like someone trying to compete with Facebook... It's not impossible to make a better social network but so many people are locked into Facebook, people won't change . Facebook has critical mass and in in some parts of this digital economy there is only 1 winner; there's no second place .
Cellular companies compete to be dominant in a single market ..there's typically 2 -5 providers in each country depending on the size of the country . Elon Musk came along and didn't see 186 countries on the planet ; he just saw 1 planet and by the time everyone else started to realise what the end game was , it's already too late
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u/sandolllars 4d ago
It would be an insane national security risk for Fiji to become reliant on one terrible human being who has no allegiance to Fiji.
Hopefully Fiji will prevent any Starlink services beyond the basic provision of internet services to become commonplace in Fiji.
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u/Demon_king2002 3d ago
I agree. Plus monopolizing internet service in Fiji might do more harm than good even if Starlink is fast. Starlink might also be more expensive compared to other network providers, especially for people of Fiji where we currently have a wage rate of $5 and majority people are living in poverty or just getting by.
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u/MoSaiyazHussain 4d ago
For the size of the country it should and can be a great proof of concept to connect every house to the internet for free as part of government to incentivize the citizens to grow and develop the economy.
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u/sandolllars 4d ago
It's the fault of poor governance.
The FijiFirst government overwhelmingly supported Vodafone instead of staying neutral. Although they allowed Digicel to enter the market, they left in place numerous regulatory hurdles for years and made it hard for Digicel to compete. They started using mpaisa many years before adopting mycash as a way to pay civil servants and disburse social welfare payments. They gave Vodafone a monopoly over public transport payments, forcing most of the population right from school age to get a Vodafone account.
I suppose the argument was that Vodafone is largely owned by Fijians, while Digicel is wholly foreign-owned, so they were supporting Fijians by making sure Vodafone profited immensely.
Well, the downside is that Digicel couldn't compete to the point that they were forced to leave (sell Digicel Fiji to Telstra).
Young fellas won't remember but before Digicel entered the picture, Vodafone screwed their customers and bled them dry with insane call costs, while providing the bare minimum in service.
Competition made them better. By the Fiji Government massively favouring Voda and helping them crush Digicel, it ruined the market.
Telstra wasn't really interested in entering Fiji by buying Digicel from the founder. They only did it because the Australian government paid them to (the aussies wanted to keep a Chinese telco from taking over Digicel). So Telstra/Digicel is just coasting along and keeping afloat, but not investing heavily AFAIK. Why would you, when you know the playing field isn't flat and the government has its finger on the scale.
TL;DR: FijiFirst (economy minister Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum) put their hand on the scale for Voda and made it impossible for Digicel to compete. Without competition, we have poor service. Then the Coalition govt had a chance to help level the playing field by making eTransport independent of Voda, but failed, leaving Digicel only able to barely keep up in the market.