Providing Wireless In the World's Most Dangerous and Remote Places

grcumb writes "The Economist magazine is running a brief profile of Digicel, a 'minnow' in the wireless telecoms market that has distinguished itself by setting up shop in some of the most unlikely (and dangerous) markets in the world, including Haiti and Papua New Guinea, whose capital, Port Moresby, has one of the highest murder rates in the world."

Comments

Telecoms is supply-driven

[grcumb]

Original submitter here.

The point I find most interesting in all this is that Digicel succeeds by defying conventional wisdom about supply and demand. They simply create supply and trust local demand to rise. Here's the second paragraph of the original submission:

"If you just focus on risk, you can't do a thing," said Digicel's billionaire president Denis O'Brien in a 2008 Forbes profile. But O'Brien's small-market revolution should teach us another lesson, too: Traditional economic analysis doesn't work when it comes to communications. Telecommunications is a supply-driven economy. If you build it — no matter where you build it — they will come.

Re:Telecoms is supply-driven

[grcumb]

Digicel succeeds by defying conventional wisdom

Considering that TFA says they are $4.3 billion debt, and trying to take their profit out of $3 phone cards, I'm not so sure I'd say they are succeeding AT ALL.

No, you're reading that wrong. Yes, they are carrying debts of $4.3 billion, but their operating profits are quite tidy. Almost all of the debt is capitalisation in new markets, which means their prospects are quite good, provided they don't do anything stupid.

Digicel SIM cards here in Vanuatu are $US 5.00 each, and they currently have over 100,000 active accounts in a country whose entire population is only 235,000. I've seen some numbers about their call volumes and I can assure you that their national operations are profitable.

Digicel is in Tonga

[Anonymous Coward]

This post was made from a Digicel connection from my yacht (currently in Tonga).

Digicel works better than some Pacific internet connections. It isn't fast, but no connections are out here. It is relatively affordable: eight hours of internet time in Tonga is ~USD15, while eight hours in French Polynesia is about EUR40 (USD55).

Re:danger

[grcumb]

How do they get wireless routers to operate in an environment filled with so much fear? I'd be dropping packets left and right. "Is that guy going to kill me?! checksum error." "That guy has a knife! No route to destination." Packet, packet, packet, pac--ARGH, THEY GOT ME!

Heh, yeah. Here in Vanuatu at least one tower was dragged down by locals because of a land dispute.

By and large, though, people tend to protect the things they value. This Forbes profile of Denis O'Brien reports that, during a period of rioting and looting in Haiti, people actually guarded the towers, because they saw Digicel as being on their side.

Interesting.

[Leebert]

I was just in Haiti over the weekend. On my prior trip in 2007, Digicel was everywhere. This time, it was Viola, and relatively little Digicel. My phone connected to Viola. In fact, Digicel wasn't even listed in the list of carriers on my iPhone when I checked. I was actually wondering if they still existed.

What's striking about Haiti (and, from what I'm told from missionary friends, parts of Africa) is how many people have cell phones. People who don't even have electricity in their homes run around with cell phones. When you wander around the mission I was working at, everywhere you go there is a cell phone plugged in and charging. Viola even has charging stations at retailers in Port-au-Prince.