There is good news for those considered to be legal Starlink users as they will continue to use the internet provided by the SpaceX company. What does it mean to be a legal internet user?

Starlink in their email wants all users in Samoa to change their account country to where they are receiving the signal from. The initial people who bought kits from New Zealand and Australia to use in Samoa violated the terms and conditions of use.

The roaming or the ‘Mobile-Regional’ plan is for temporary use but as we know, people attempted to use it permanently. But what were these people to do? They had a cheaper option of getting access to the internet at a cheaper price.

For businesses, this meant savings in thousands of tala. The internet is an essential part of business. Most communications either locally or abroad require the use of the internet. Most businesses would not even be able to stay afloat if they did not have access to the internet.

Why would not they choose the cheaper option? Local businesses pay between $2,000 to $10,000 in bills to telecommunication service providers. Who in their right mind would not like to have access to the internet and just pay $200 a month?

When the first units were brought in and set up, people thought it was a legal thing to do, perhaps temporarily it was. The Office of the Regulator stepped in and said Starlink could not operate permanently because the company did not have a license.

The OOTR was right. The nation’s laws do not allow for such illegal operations. To remedy the problem, the OOTR finalised annual fees as regulatory charges. This was alright until last week when Starlink sent emails to its customers in Samoa.

The company was trying to do the right thing. Get customers in Samoa who were violating the terms and conditions of use to adhere to the agreement. In doing so, customers have been told to provide serial numbers of their devices and change their account country.

Many businesses have been worried that they were going to start paying exorbitant rates for internet use again. So were the many domestic customers.

It is unbelievable to know that people are paying close to $100 a month to have data on their personal phones. This is what the internet costs here and if it is a business then they are spending a lot more. Starlink has come with an opportunity for business owners and for homes, but what about the people who cannot afford to buy a Starlink kit.

The rules of a free market economy say if a consumer can afford it, he or she is entitled to it. However, it is discriminatory to think that those who cannot afford cheap internet, continue to pay the higher price because there is nothing else that can be done.

Telecommunication companies are private corporations. They want to make profits and whatever the cost of operation they are incurring will be passed on to the consumers. Apart from the high fees of connecting to the submarine cables owned by the government, the telcos are also incurring high costs in electricity bills.

It is time for the government to step in. As majority shareholders of the Samoa Submarine Cable Company, the government has the power to do so. It can reduce the cost for telecommunication companies to connect to these cables.

In an example from neighbouring Fiji, in 2019, the cost of $256,000 for a 10-gigabyte line was initially reduced to $40,000 for a 10-gigabyte line and later reduced to $640 for a 10-gigabyte line per month. The same can be done for Samoa if electricity rates cannot be lowered.

Data is now an essential and widely utilised commodity that is essential to business and communication and given that SSCC has a monopolistic position in the market, the government must undertake a thorough review of the current rates to ensure accessibility of these services for Samoans.

Unregulated monopolies can prevent the people of this country from accessing important services and do not stimulate competition in markets. Samoans need to have affordable access to the internet no matter where they are, whether it be in urban, rural, or maritime areas.

Not everyone can buy Starlink, the ones with the lowest incomes are paying the most for data.