Fiji, an island nation in Melanesia in the South Pacific Ocean, comprising an archipelago of more than 332 islands, of which 110 are permanently inhabited, and more than 500 islets, is the country Internet and e-commerce infrastructure of which we are to explore today. Its immediate neighbours are Vanuatu to the west, France's New Caledonia to the southwest, New Zealand's Kermadec to the southeast, Tonga to the east, the Samoas and France's Wallis and Futuna to the northeast and Tuvalu to the north. The two major islands, Viti Levu and Vanua Levu, account for 87% of the population of almost 850,000. Evidently, the economy of this island country is mainly dependent on tourism. Since the change in government in 2006 Fiji has been going through the global financial crisis. The country’s infrastructure was also damaged by floods in 2009, thus far it has faced decline in tourism sector and exports volume, that reflected strong economy’s recession. 

As for the telecom sector Fiji has a fairly reliable and efficient telecommunication system with access to the Southern Cross submarine cable linking New Zealand, Australia and North America, relative to many other South Pacific islands.

Country’s telecom industry is based around three major monopolies which were protected through exclusivity licences until regulatory changes that had place in 2007 with passing of the government’s Telecommunications Bill which deregulated elements of the country’s telecom sector.

Until then, the incumbent, Telecom Fiji, used to have an exclusive licence to provide domestic fixed-line voice and data services, while Vodafone Fiji was the sole provider of mobile services, and Fintel had a monopoly on international voice and data services. As a result, the relatively poor service was seen in Fiji subjected to, high prices and minimal customer care. However Vodafone lost its monopoly status when Digicel Fiji launched its network in 2008.

After the Telecommunications Bill was passed, the number of other ISPs entered the market. Moreover, they are currently operating successfully. Among them, as says www.ostamyy.com, there are:

• Connect Internet Services – one of the Fiji’s main internet service providers that offers dialup access and an internet cafes, also delivering information about web services and support.
• KIDANET – markets itself as Fiji's Super-speed Internet Provider
• Tempest Telecom - offers dial-up Internet access in Fiji via 2 access numbers. These numbers provide service in Fiji anywhere there is availability of a telephone jack. Tempest Telecom offers high-speed broadband wireless Wi-Fi (Wireless Fidelity) Internet access in Fiji via 2 hotspots
• Inet – is a Fiji owned company that was set up specifically to provide Internet services and web site design and hosting
• Precision IT Solutions – Fiji’s IT company specializing in computer hardware sales and service, internet cafe's, both wired and wireless networking

As for the internet penetration it still remains relatively low, with very poor rural penetration that is stipulated by high cost of Internet access services largely. Thus far, according to the latest data from www.internetworldstats.com the volume of subscribers in Fiji has only reached 11%. However the growth for the decade is enormous, having made up almost 1300% rising from less than 1% seen in 2000.

Meantime, the situation with the high cost of Internet connection services has been changing that will definitely attract more consumers. Price cuts on Fintel’s Internet bandwidth take effect from mid-2010 through to mid-2011. The price cuts in total is supposed to be over 61% over the two-year period.

Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Fiji is .fj, administered by University of the South Pacific. Registration is only possible under the following second-level sub-domains:

• ac.fj
• biz.fj
• com.fj
• info.fj
• mil.fj
• name.fj
• net.fj
• org.fj
• pro.fj

So, let’s now pay our attention to e-commerce infrastructure in Fiji. Due to imperfection and underdevelopment of economy that is not ready to SMEs activity, the country is not ready also to e-commerce business effectively as well. When readiness for SMEs was scrutinized in terms of cost, quality, and penetration of telephones and PCs, generally in Fiji is below average in comparison to the figures for the lower middle income group. It cannot be admitted that costs are reasonable for the SMEs, as the costs are relevant to the outcome from the utilisation of telecommunication services.

At the same time, quality of Internet service is sometimes low along with modest availability of web access. The complex of these factors hampers SME utilization of the Internet as a marketing platform.

Anyway, Internet is getting in Fiji, like in many other countries throughout the world a communication and research tool. However, the archipelago nation still remains relatively young in terms of ICT development.

Nevertheless businesses started using the Web as a communication tool, having recognized the Internet as an important platform for conducting business successfully.

Well, Fiji’s telecom market, that used to be almost totally underdeveloped, has shown good signs of progress in terms of ICT and e-commerce development.