The trial of a free WiFi internet service in the heart of Apia has proven to be a success with the project’s proponents keen on making it permanent. 

The South Pacific Broadband Co. Ltd, which is an emerging technology company based in Apia and focused on the commercialisation of innovative products and systems, launched the free WiFi internet service within the Apia town area as Phase 1 of their project.

The company is a leading provider in Real-Time World IP (R.T.W.I.P) Networked solutions and the launch has made Samoa the first in the South Pacific region to monetise the IOT through point to multipoint high-speed access with reliable connectivity for the purpose of assisting the greater need of connectivity through free public WiFi.

South Pacific Broadband Co. Ltd founder Saua Junior Emelio said in a statement that the company is now on track to reach 200,000 users by the first quarter of 2022.

According to the statement to date 6,500 users have enjoyed the service with an average of 58 Gigabyte usage (up and down) per 1,000 users per week.

Executive Director of the firm, Marlo Stivers told the Samoa Observer in a telephone interview that there have been a lot of problems with connectivity in the South Pacific region.

"And our purpose was to prove that it is possible to have reliable service in working with the local telecommunication companies,” she said.

“We worked with both Digicel and Vodafone and what we're showing is how we can offload them to relieve the congestion.”

Currently the firm is working with Vodafone and Digicel as they made a commitment to help support them to allow their customers to join their network for free.

"But a lot of people are finding that just simply by turning off their data and when they go downtown they can save money by turning off the data by using our network and then once they go out of the coverage, they can start using their data again," said Mrs Stivers.

Phase 1 of the project is within the Apia town area and there are no limitations and it is simple to connect to the network.

Mrs Stivers said: “It's just simple any phone has a WiFi connection and you click on connections, click on WiFi, click on turn on the WiFi and SSIDs the name of SSIDs will show up and our SSID is VNTV.

"There two channels, the faster channel is VNTV, the slower channel for average phones is VNTV24.

"For technical reasons we had to put two different channels because we're proving now that the VNTV2.4 is multigenerational, it can support 3G, 4G all the way up to 7G.

"VNTV by itself can support both phones, the older phones and the newer phones, and a lot of people are asking to buy newer phones because the network is much faster. 

“There's absolutely no channels that are competing with that particular channel."

Mrs Stivers said it is still within the pilot phase but she would like to see it permanent.

"And of course we are open to criticism but we have been very successful in deploying in Asia, Europe, Northern Europe, Africa as well as America and I've been very successful in Asia deploying the network," she said.

"But deploying the network to work with the local telos, we keep it free. 

“People have already paid for their data so why pay more so it's very important to us to deploy and prove the system is viable. 

“There've been a lot of happy customers since we deployed and we went live and we took off the passwords.

"And they're asking when we can expand and how quickly we can expand.”

Founder and the Chief Executive Officer (C.E.O) of Sweratel AB, Mohammed Fahd said in a statement that they are pleased to be working with local partners, whose mission is to take Smart Networked Society Cities/Communities to new heights. 

"It complements our objectives of bringing the Sweratel R.T.W.I.P technology to the most challenging areas, that can support thousands of concurrent users, providing a truly complete mobility lifestyle," he said.