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Papua New Guinea Communications - 2024


SOURCE: 2024 CIA WORLD FACTBOOK

GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES  Spanish Simplified Chinese French German Russian Hindi Arabic Portuguese

Telephones - fixed lines

total subscriptions: 166,000 (2021 est.)

subscriptions per 100 inhabitants: 2 (2021 est.)

Telephones - mobile cellular

total subscriptions: 4.8 million (2021 est.)

subscriptions per 100 inhabitants: 48 (2021 est.)

Telecommunication systems

general assessment: fixed-line teledensity in Papua New Guinea has seen little change over the past two decades; progress in the country’s telecom sector has come primarily from mobile networks, where accessibility has expanded considerably in recent years, with population coverage increasing from less than 3% in 2006 to more than 90% by early 2021; the MNOs operate networks offering services based on GSM, 3G, and 4G, depending on location; GSM is prevalent in many rural and remote areas, while 3G and 4G are centered more on urban areas; MNOs’ investments in 4G are growing, though GSM still represents the bulk of all mobile connections owing to the low penetration of smartphones and the concentration of high-speed data networks predominantly in high value urban areas; a lack of sufficient competition and investment in the wire line segment has driven up prices and hampered network coverage and quality; infrastructure deployment costs are high, partly due to the relatively low subscriber base, the difficult terrain, and the high proportion of the population living in rural areas; fixed telecom infrastructure is almost non-existent outside urban centers, leaving most of the population under served; PNG is the Pacific region’s largest poorly developed telecom market, with only around 22% of its people connected to the internet; this falls far behind the recommended targets set in the country’s draft National Broadband Policy, which aimed to provide universal mobile broadband access; low international capacity has meant that internet services are slow and unreliable; two subsea cables connect PNG to Australia (landing at Sydney) and the United States (Guam); despite the improvement in recent years, the country is still impacted by a connectivity infrastructure deficit, making it reliant on more expensive alternatives such as satellites, also weighing on the affordability of services for end-users; the government granted a license to Starlink at the beginning of 2024, which should improve digital access in rural areas (2023)

domestic: fixed-line nearly 2 per 100 and mobile-cellular is 48 per 100 persons (2021)

international: country code - 675; landing points for the Kumul Domestic Submarine Cable System, PNG-LNG, APNG-2, CSCS the PPC-1 submarine cables to Australia, Guam, PNG and Solomon Islands; and CS² to PNG, Solomon Islands, and Australia; satellite earth station - 1 Intelsat (Pacific Ocean) (2023)

Broadcast media

5 TV stations: 1 commercial station (TV Wan), 2 state-run stations, (National Broadcasting Corporation and EMTV - formerly a commercial TV station previously owned by Fiji Television Limited but PNG’s Telikom purchased it in Jan 2016, hence being state-run); 1 digital free-to-view network launched in 2014, and 1 satellite network Click TV (PNGTV) launched in 2015; the state-run NBC operates 3 radio networks with multiple repeaters and about 20 provincial stations; several commercial radio stations with multiple transmission points as well as several community stations; transmissions of several international broadcasters are accessible (2023)

Internet country code

.pg

Internet users

total: 3.168 million (2021 est.)

percent of population: 32% (2021 est.)

Broadband - fixed subscriptions

total: 21,000 (2020 est.)

subscriptions per 100 inhabitants: 0.2 (2020 est.)

NOTE: The information regarding Papua New Guinea on this page is re-published from the 2024 World Fact Book of the United States Central Intelligence Agency and other sources. No claims are made regarding the accuracy of Papua New Guinea 2024 information contained here. All suggestions for corrections of any errors about Papua New Guinea 2024 should be addressed to the CIA or the source cited on each page.

This page was last modified 04 May 24, Copyright © 2024 ITA all rights reserved.