Papua New Guinea’s state-owned operators Telikom PNG and bmobile are reportedly jointly rolling out a USD100 million 3G/4G mobile phone network, which is expected to go live from April 2015, Telegeography.com reported on Aug 21, 2014. Confirming some details of the infrastructure rollout, Telikom PNG’s CEO Michael Donnelly was cited as saying: ‘As you know, Telikom and bmobile are building a new 3G/4G network across the country. We are co-investing in that and that stops any duplication of government investment in a very competitive mobile telephony network to compete with the major player and it will be very future-proof.’ In terms of launch dates, the executive added: ‘We believe [the network] will be ready, certainly in Port Moresby, by April next year and across the country by the end of next year.’

Commenting on the perceived benefits of the recently announced strategic partnership between bmobile and UK-based Vodafone Group, Mr Donnelly meanwhile claimed that this should bring ‘a lot of know-how in terms of product market, product packaging, and procurement because Vodafone is the single biggest purchaser of Huawei technology around the world’.