15 Sep 2006

West Indies company buys Telecom Samoa

9:49 am on 15 September 2006

The West Indies-based mobile phone operator, DIGICEL, has bought out Telecom Samoa from Telecom New Zealand.

In a statement, DIGICEL says that Telecom Samoa with its local its local partner, CSL Mobile Limited, would launch a new advanced mobile phone network in Samoa, providing coverage to at least 80-percent of the population by next month.

The company DIGICEL already has a licence to operate in Papua New Guinea.

Its chairman, Dennis O'Brien, says their aim is to place the entire Pan-Pacific region at the cutting edge of wireless technology by providing the best technology to their customers.

But DIGICEL's attempt to enter the Fiji market suffered a setback recently when there was an internal management coup in its local partner, Ba Provincial Holdings.