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PacNOG 2 Meeting Apia, Western Samoa
19th June 2006
Country Report Solomon Islands
By Jerome Rivogani Andrew Rarumae Jr.
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SOLOMON ISLANDSabout

• Consists of 6 major Islands, thousands of
  smaller islands, more than half of
• which is inhabited.

• 9 Provinces, having their provincial govt.
  bodies, affiliated to the main governing
• Body.

• Capital of Solomon Islands is known as Honiara,
  situated on the island of
• Guadalcanal

• Population of around 600,000 (plus)

• Majority Melanesian, with Polynesian,
  Micronesian, Chinese ethnic as the next in
• terms of population.

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SOLOMON TELEKOM CO. LTD.

• Formerly known as P T (Post
  Telecommunications), then changed to SolTel
• and then later (till present) known as Solomon
  Telekom Co. Ltd.

• Share between Cable Wireless (34.33 share),
  NPF (National Provident Fund)
• (62.85), ICSI (Investment Corporation of Solomon
  Islands) (2.82).

• Currently operating as a monopoly.

• Solomon Telekom is the only ISP operator in the
  Solomon Islands.

• Operates fixed lines, mobile, internet, leased
  circuits, radio, broadband, ccTLD.

• Penetration level managed to provide Telephony
  between all of the major
• Provincial capitals, and few other remote sites.

• Solomon Telekom employs something around 250
  Staffs, Ranging from managers,
• engineers, technicians, personals, cleaners,
  security officers, drivers.

• Want to read more, go to http//www.telekom.com.sb

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SUBSCRIBERS COUNT

• Fixed Lines 6,000 (plus). Telephone is provided
  in all provincial centres.

• Mobile 2,000 (plus). GSM mobile is provided only
  in Honiara, with analogue
• mobile phones in the western region.

• E-mail Subscribers 2,500 (plus).

• Website Hosting 23. These are sites hosted
  locally on our server.

• Domain name hosting 105. The count is only for
  domains registered locally.

• Broadband (ADSL) 500 (plus). To date, this has
  only been implemented in the
• capital city, Honiara, with plans to eventually
  have it on all provincial capitals.

• Dial-Up 1,600 (plus). The figure has decreased
  with introduction of ADSL
• broadband connection.

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IS (INFORMATION SERVICES) DEPT.

• Information Services Department is responsible
  for Internet services for both the
• country as a whole as well as for the corporate
  (Telekom) users.

• Within this department we have the Billing, Data,
  Network/Support, ADSL and
• Internet section.

• Within the Internet section, we have 2 senior
  engineers, 1 asst. engineer
• 2 technicians, all reporting to the overall
  manager asst. manager for the whole
• department.

• Internet Helpdesk section looks after the
  provisioning of Internet services, including
• Initial broadband (ADSL) provisioning, dial-up
  setup, email hosting, website hosting,
• domain registration and other DNS issues.

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ccTLD STRUCTURE

• .sb country code top-level domain for the Solomon
  Islands.

• Solomon Telekom Co. Ltd. is the authority
  (Regulator) for .sb ccTLD.

• We have three main players in the running of .sb
  domain name.

• Solomon Telekom Co. Ltd. Regulator as well as
  registrar (for local subscribers)

• AusRegistry International Pty. Ltd. Registry

• TPP Internet Registrar (for overseas subscribers)

• We sell .com.sb, .org.sb, .edu.sb, .gov.sb
  .net.sb.

• Solomon Telekom hosts two DNS servers, both
  located locally.

• Both servers run on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3.

• Both machines are HP.

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ACCOUNTING PROCESS COSTS
Regulator (.sb Authority)
Registrant
SBD37.91
Local Registrar
US13
Solomon Telekom Co. Ltd.
Subscribers
??
US25
Overseas Registrar
Registry
US25
TPP Internet
AusRegistry
Registrants pays Registrars Registrars pays
Registry Registry pays Regulator AusRegistry
charges on quarterly (3 months) basis Solomon
Telekom charges on monthly basis
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POLICY ISSUES

• Operates on a first come first serve basis.

• Disputes are resolved between Regulator (Telekom)
  Customer. We havent
• had any record of disputes with domain names, but
  feel we should opt for a better
• resolution process setup before we come across
  any big issue.

• Regulator (Telekom) has the right to reject a
  domain name application. .gov.sb is
• highly moderated while others, we tend to process
  as applicable with little less
• moderation.

• Domain names are deleted from the Authorative
  server (with AusRegistry) as well
• as our name servers on cut-off (bill due) dates.
  There hasnt been any case where
• two parties had a dispute over a domain name
  (locally) before or after it had
• expired.

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FUTURE PLANS

• Replace both DNS servers

• Both current servers run on Red Hat Enterprise
  Linux 3 but have decided to
• Go with FreeBSD on the two new ones.

• Re-locate secondary server on a different
  location (different island). Talks have
• been on having one in another country but havent
  been seriously considered yet.

• Review current agreement we had with TPP Internet
  AusRegistry.

• Get all in the Internet Services section up to
  par with everyones primary tasks,
• which includes ccTLD issues.

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THANK YOU
QUESTIONS?