BY MELISHA YAFOI

Telikom PNG Limited has acquired some capacity access from PNG Data Co’s fibre optic cable between Madang and Port Moresby.
This was announced by Telikom acting chief executive officer Xavier Victor at the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between the two parties yesterday.
The MOU now enables the two parties to make available domestic and international cable capacity to each other for their respective infrastructures under normal commercial arrangements.
Mr Victor said under the MOU they will be using some capacity from Data Co to be able to carry and support their 4G LTE network and also support its existing customers that are in the path of the optical ground cable.
“We’ve asked them to use one lane of the highway that they have built from Madang up to the Highlands region and down to Port Moresby exclusively for our customers to use.
“Conversely they will also be getting capacity from us under current arrangement to carry their customers’ traffic from domestic to international through its domestic fibre network and its leased capacity on the Pipe Pacific Cable 1 (PPC1).
It’s a commercial arrangement between Data Co and Telikom and we are proud that we have finally arrived at this point and make sure that we start to do business working very closely together going forward.
Data Co managing director Paul Komboi said the MOU will enhance cooperation between both entities to ride on each other’s infrastructure basically to be able to utilize, maximise and complement each other where coverage and accessibility is concerned.
“We will access PPC1 that is currently managed and operated by Telikom, we will acquire capacity from there and then redistribute through the fibre network that we have for accessibility to any carriers or any clients with the licenses that is given by the National Information and Communication Technology Authority (NICTA).”
I think this is a very big milestone achievement for us in terms of collaborating with Telikom.”
“We really appreciate the assistance of the team who worked so hard in putting this document together and also for the board, for supporting this initiative between the two entities now under Kumul Communications Consolidation Limited,” he said.