Telecommunication Industry: Maldives
Telecommunication is the most useful system in our life at present. There is no way we would be able to live without telecommunication depending on the current situation. The most widely used telecommunication type at the time been can be called to cell phones, to which we normally call’s the mobile phones. Following that if I didn’t mention the Internet it will feel something lacks in this line. So Internet can be called the 2nd largest way of telecommunication nowadays. I will try to highlight on the starting of telecommunication and its quality till today in Maldives.
The inauguration of telecommunication in Maldives was done about 67 years before. The official date of this inauguration is told to be 23rd of December in 1943. This was done by the Maldivian government itself. At that time Maldives had no official ruler. Yet it was unofficially ruled by Al Amir Mohamed Amin Dhoshimeyna Kilegefaan at that time. Later on 17th May 1977 a public company known to be a telecommunication provider from United Kingdom called Cable & Wireless was given the permission to start its operation as the telecommunication provider. This permission was given when Ibrahim Nasir was the president of Maldives.
Year by year telecommunication was bringing revolutions in different areas. These revolutions brought the conclusion for the operation done by Cable & Wireless alone. Maldives government and Cable & Wireless accepted terms to introduce a private company as a telecommunication provider in Maldives. A joint venture company between Cable & Wireless and the Maldivian government was formed in 1st October 1988 which was called DHIRAAGU. The company was 52% owned by Cable & Wireless and Maldives government held the rest 48% share. This was done under the presidency of Maumoon Abdul Gayoom. It is known that Maldives government later on bought shares from Cable & Wireless and owned the company with more than 50% share. But after the change of government in 2008 the current president Mohamed Nasheed sold the shares back and at present Dhiraagu is again owned by Cable & Wireless with 52% share.
I will be noting some information’s about the telecommunication providers present at the country other than Dhiraagu too. Dhiraagu used blue as it’s co-operate colour since it began operation in 1988. After 17 years when a competitor came to face them they changed both their logo and colour saying that it was done in order to face the competitor. This co-operate colour was changed from blue to red. In 1989 they did a major upgrade of cable network in Male’. The paging service was introduced in 1991. Then one of the most common services, Internet service was introduced in 1996. This was the first time Maldives tasted the service of Internet. This service was formerly called Netlink and it later changed to the current name DhivehiNet.
The most commonly used mobile phone service was introduced under the brand name DhiMobile in 1997. Initially the Advanced Mobile system was also introduced. In 1999 Mobile phone service platform was upgraded to GSM. After the change of logo and colour in 2005 Dhiraagu connected Maldives to the world with 2 submarine cables. They told this cable will help the company to reduce the cost of providing communication, internet services and will help to improve the quality of services too. Dhiraagu has long been seen dominating the telecommunications in Maldives till now.
Raajje’ online is the second Internet service provider in Maldives. This is the brand name for the Broadband Internet services provided by the company Focus Infocom Private Limited. This is known to be the first 100% private Internet service provider in Maldives. The company was founded in February 2003 and it was issued a license for the provision and operation of commercial internet services on May 2003. On December 2003 Focus Infocom commenced its internet services, under the brand name of Raajje’ Online. SingTel, Wataniya Telecom Maldives, Reliance Infocom (India), Bridges Singapore, Navini Networks (USA), Local cable operators, Sky Pilot Networks (USA)are the technical partners of them. But still there service is only available in Male’ region and a part of Addu.
Wataniya Telecom Maldives is the second mobile operator in Maldives. Wataniya Maldives was selected as 2nd telecommunication provider after a bidding process between three other companies. They were issued a licence as the new mobile phone operator in February 2005. Their service was officially launched on 1st August 2005. The point to note is that Wataniya was also using red as their co-operate colour around the world too. So this lead both the mobile operators colour to be the same. Shortly after launching the service on 5th August 2005, they organized WOW! – WOW was a music show held in Male’. The aim of this show was to promote and publicize the company. The show was presented by famous MTV India host VJ Nikhil.
Wataniya Telecom International was registered as a service provider in 1999. They are already a leading mobile phone operator in the Middle East and North Africa. It is proven that Wataniya Telecom is currently serving a total of more than three million customers in Kuwait, Tunisia, Iraq, Algeria and Saudi Arabia respectively.
Currently Wataniya Maldives are providing GSM services throughout Maldives There are many other services which they have introduced as Maldives first to our telecommunication, locally and regionally (South Asia) too. Wataniya Telecom Maldives is also the first to launch one of the most famous services at present; they launched the 3G+ HSDPA network in the Maldives on 17th April 2008. It offered video calls and high speed mobile data connectivity through which many are gaining the fast and easy to use mobile internet.
Wataniya Maldives has now been the sole competitor of Dhiraagu. Since Wataniya Telecom Maldives has entered the market the customers have gained numerous benefits due to strong competition between these two rivals. This has leaded the telecommunication of Maldives to become the best at the time in the South Asia. The price and the quality have also being improved than other countries in South Asia at a higher rate after Wataniya Maldives entered the telecommunication service in Maldives.
So, finally we can say our telecommunication Industry is going on the right direction. Still there are areas to improve. The most important area to improve is the Internet. Still Internet service is not at its best. But it also has increased to a good quality at present. We can now hope that our country can taste every new service introduced in telecommunication Industry of the world.
31/05/10