By Emmanuel Narokobi

We mentioned this possibility of Telikom not playing fair in a past post of ours:

“…I have also heard that Telikom also is to become an ISP, so we better hope that the broadband rates will all be quite even across the board [against the other ISP's] so that Telikom is not tempted to engage in predatory pricing to abuse its current monopoly position.”

So I am not one bit suprised that Telikom is being reprimanded today. See the full article below.

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TELIKOM should not be charging customers for telecommunications services that do not have tariff approvals, as this is prohibited by section 78(5) of the Telecommunications Act.
The Independent Consumer and Competition Commission (ICCC) said Telikom did not comply with some of the requirements under the Telecommunications Act.
ICCC said under the Act, the data carriage services provided via a satellite-based system (VSA) and the digitalised fixed line technology known as Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL) technology, are services which are reserved for a general carrier license. The ICCC said the broadband tariff provided by Telikom, the sole licensed general carrier in PNG did not include a number of things. It did not “unbundle” the data carriage service from the internet value added services as required under Telikom’s general carrier license, its value added services license and its regulatory contract. Also the tariff did not offer a wholesale rate for data carriage, which the Internet Service Providers (ISPs) could use, as it was required to.
The Telecommunications Act, section 78(2) sets out things that should be included in the tariff. ICCC said the first two failures in the tariff meant that the ISP’s were unable to complete with Telikom with proving internet services because of Telikom’s monopoly position in data carriage.
ICCC said Telikom had been advertising and signing up new customers to both its data carriage service and value added Internet access.
The ICCC said this marketing approach known as “bundling” whereby Telikom was selling its data carriage services and providing (competing) internet services as one combined product selling for a single price could force out the four existing ISPs in PNG out of business if this arrangement continued.
This is because ISPs do not have access to Telikom’s broadband data carriage services at an appropriate wholesale price.
ICCC said Telikom can still provide services but it cannot charge for them until their tariff was approved.
Customers can report to ICCC if Telikom demands or receives payment for telecommunications services which do not have tariff approval.