The Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase announced a fortnight ago that there were going to be reductions in the cost of telecommunication sevices to those living in the rural and outer lying/remote islands in Fiji. This, he meant was going to be a reduction in the VTSat services. VTSat services form the satellite telecommunication system for these rural areas in which tourist resorts are included.

VTsat post paid customers or in other words those that pay a bill at the end of every month will have their call rates reduced by 53%. This means that now to call from say an island in Lau to Suva would be just like calling from Suva to Lautoka for 23 cents a minute instead of 49 cents a minute.

With prepaid customers or in other words Telecard users - will now pay 43 cents a minute to call anywhere in Fiji instead of having to pay 80 cents a minute.

Okay with international calls - VTSat post paid customers and telecard users will now pay the same standard international rates that is charged to urban customers.

See the difference?? Rural customers have had to pay alot for telecommunications, but not this time...

HOWEVER, VTSat is not limited to telephones only - it also includes internet data. By this, I mean the outsourcing of internet to say a resort. Okay, the resort will access internet by using the broadband & bandwith provided by Telecom Fiji Limited. So, Internet service data has been reduced around 80%.

Okay for bandwith users of 64 kilo bits per second (this is considered slow) - they now pay $2,261.25 a month (VIP) compared to the $478.13 a month (VIP).

For those using internet data access speed of 128kbps, the price will drop by a major 81% from $2,576.25/mth (VIP) to $495.00/mth (VIP). There are 4 resorts that currently use VTSat for data access.

Also as part of assisting Government in its efforts to increase access to telecommunications nationally and develop ICT in the rural areas - Telecom Fiji has announced that is fully funding five pilot Telecentre projects this year in Nayavu, Vunidawa, Dreketi, Muanaweni and Ratu Latianara Secondary school.

These centres will offer telephone, fax, internet, photocopying, printing and scanning facilities for the people in these communities.

Government's intention this year too is to increase the normal 1 line per village to 4 lines per village. Like there used to be only one telephone telecard line operating from a village community hall - now there will be 4 per village. Government is contributing $500,000 this year to assist Telecom Fiji in this aspect.

And the combined target is get everyone connected by telephone by the end of this year, so far 75% are connected.