Signature Petition for Extending Landline Telephone Services
to Aleisa and Vicinity
Hand delivered to Mr. Mike Johnstone, SamoaTel CEO on 24 May 2006
Dear Mr. Johnstone,
We, the residents of Aleisa and vicinity (a population of about 3000) hereby present to you the attached signed petition asking for basic telephone services to be brought to our area. This petition of 200 signatures is only an indication of a greater number of residents in our area who are willing and anxious to receive landline telephone services immediately. We are aware of SamoaTel's unwillingness to deal with issue of providing landline services to Aleisa and vicinity as evidenced by SamoaTel systematically ignoring our repeated petitions for the past 9 years. Below we reiterate some facts which have been grossly overlooked or distorted by SamoaTel.
- Aleisa is a densely populated area close to Apia and only a few miles away from existing fiber optics network. According to the most recent national census this region, North-West Upolu, is the fastest-growing in Samoa.
- Aleisa is well developed and has an established infrastructure for over a decade with a major cross-island road and many ancillary tar-sealed roads to the coastal regions.
- All things considered, a modest capital investment in extending landline services is financially viable for SamoaTel with positive cost--benefit ratios and a healthy return on investment.
- This signed petition shall by far satisfy the (phantom) threshold number of applicants for extending landline telephone services in an area. Upon satisfactory commitment by SamoaTel official, individual applications will be filed with SamoaTel.
Needless to say that the current inferior, unreliable, costly, voice-only, prepaid HomeZone service nor the proposed GSM mobile technology is a substitute for basic telephone services in our area and therefore, are utterly unacceptable, not only to us, but also to any rural and semi-rural area currently without landline telephone services.
In addition, we would like to, once again, remind SamoaTel of its Community Service Obligation (Public Bodies Performance and Accountability Act 2001) and a number of other obligations (World Bank's Telecommunications and Postal Sector Reform Project - embedded poverty reduction module, Regional ICT commitments, Strategy for Development of Samoa, etc.)
We are well informed of all technical, engineering, financial implications and logistics of extending basic telephone services to Aleisa and strongly suggest SamoaTel refraining from inflating costs, exaggerating technical and engineering intricacies or stating an unreasonable time frame for extending telephone services to our area.
We expect a solid commitment by SamoaTel and a concrete draft plan including a reasonable timeframe in writing within two weeks from the date of this petition outlining the extension of landline telephone services to Aleisa and vicinity. We ask that you provide a written response to our long overdue request.
More than 150 signatures attached on separate sheets and made a part of this letter. |
