WELLINGTON (Pacific Media Watch): Award-winning Niuean internet developer, Emani Fakaotimanava-Lui, hopes internet access and empowerment will decrease migration from the tiny island country.
As a result of income from selling the domain name .nu, Emani through his company Internet Niue, has provided internet access to 13 of 14 villages on the island, thus providing Niue with the best internet services in the South Pacific.
After paying an initial connection cost (which can be anything from 25 to 500 dollars), internet usage is free in Niue.
Now, Niueans are seeing the benefits of internet in the country, according to Emani.
Pacific Media Watch interviewed him at the internet conference Nethui 2013 in Wellington this week.
“A lot of people before didn’t have internet in their homes, but because of our coverage that we have expanded – the coverage is now all over the island – the demand is a lot more, including mobile devices,” Emani explained.
Business development
One way to use the internet is by setting up businesses with a global outreach.
Less than two years ago, Emani’s wife, TaniRose, started up a skincare company website for her company Hei Niue. She said internet is crucial for Niue businesses.
“Oh, it’s very important. That’s the only way from Niue we can market our products and create global awareness of what we have and what we can offer,” she told Pacific Media Watch.
The population of Niue has decreased from about 5000 in the 1960’s to around 1400 today. Emani hopes there will be more business initiatives coming in the next few years, something which may help stop the population decline from the island.
“Yes, that’s also part of what we envisage…other companies and small businesses coming online, and there are quite a few that’s doing that as well, especially those involved in the tourism sector with fishing charters and things like eco-tourism, bushwalks, reef-walks, so there’s going to be a whole lot more coming out of internet presence,” the internet developer says.
Emani Fakaotimanava-Lui was awarded the 2011 Information Society Innovation Fund (ISIF) Asia grant for his efforts to empower Niuean internet usage.
Project officer at ISIF Asia, Sylvia Cadena, calls Internet Niue’s project “a very unique initiative and very unique mechanism to trade the benefits of selling a domain name that people are interested in, and use those fund […] to implement access to all the islanders for free.”
Niue is the only in which wireless internet is provided in the entire country.
Internet problems
Although Niue is by most measures a ‘connected country’, much could be better, according to Emani.
Niue’s internet satellite connection is very expensive, and does not provide the speed most New Zealanders are used to.
Dreaming of a fibre connection, such as the one which will be launched in Tonga next month, is of no use, Emani explained.
“Well, for Tonga it’s different in terms of population. Our population is only 1300 to 1600, so we can’t demand for such thing as fibre. We can, but who would really pay for such an amount to bring fibre under the sea to an island of 1300 to 1600 people?”
“It just doesn’t add up in terms of economic benefits to the people. The people would end up to pay a hundred times more for the services as compared to Tonga with their population,” Emani said.
The internet guru of Niue has not given up though, and says that work is going on to “increase and improve the bandwidth coming into Niue”.
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Daniel Drageset
