www.lifhaus.com.sb

First of all, you have to ask yourself, is your question an academic question or a business question?
If its an academic question than i cant help you. Ask your lecturers who make it their living$$$ to ask these kinds of questions. But if its a business question, then i have to ask you this, have you been back in the Solomons and assess the IT business here? What kind of business do they do here successfuly that involves IT?

All i can tell you is that there is demand for the following IT related business:
1. Network implementation - Simple LAN and WAN cat5 networking with routers and possibly encripted wireless LANS.
2. Web design and maintenance and increasingly content management websites.
3. Prewiring of biuldings - Cat5 networking
4. PC support
5. IT consultancy work

Above from above the most successful IT business here at the moment is retailling: Selling PCs, Selling computer accessories, selling IT knowhow, Selling Multimedia skills, Selling web skills etc.
Basically creating an IT shop than can provide in-house comprehensive IT servie as well as being able to supply internationally recognised PC brands and support. Hem nomoa.

1 - establish yourself as a hokey IT supplier who gives kickbacks to anyone who works for a govt. dept. / aid organisation and orders stuff from you (ask what the other two quotes were first so you are always cheapest).
2 - only supply pirated software - the client thinks that they are saving money, but they're not - they have to come back and see you every time they need their software reloaded, which is a regular event because they don't have a legitimate software license, can't upgrade their software, making it vulnerable to malware attack therefore killing the machine every three months. Each time you reload it, you tell them how they are saving money by you supplying them with 'free' software - lol!!!
3 - get a job with an IT business in Honiara, then do as many PJ's (personal jobs) as you can. People will think you are an 'IT expert' (which means you know how to load pirated software).
4 - get someone you know to flick you a multi-million dollar computer supply contract, then NEVER deliver. This is the best part -> then get your employees to complain to people that the problem in the Solomons is that there is not enough IT taught in schools and that schools need computers (I kid you not - I heard this directly - I made sure I pointed out the irony of the comment).

As you can see there are many ways to make money from IT in the Solomons - you just need to be creative.

Oh capt Mulch forgot the best one: How to set up an IT shop in the Solomon Islands.

1. Make sure you have a relative who works in the government IT department. A senior staff is prefered, one who puts together government orders for PCs and IT gear.

2. Talk to that wantok and strike a deal.

3. Everytime government orders IT stock from your wantok's overseas vendor add your company stock order as well, (your wantok should have already have a nice lucrative relationship with that vendor. Asian vendors are best, they understand 'gift' giving better than white folks who may see the practice as bribes or kickbacks

4. When stock arrives, give to SIG what they need, get yours and sell it at your shop.

5. You have free stuff to sell at well over 100% on top of that, your Asian vendor (you call him business partner now) gives you your sales bonus for the 30 PCs ordered. (20 for SIG ministry needs, 10 for your IT store)

Ya man.  this kind teknik ya run wild lo staka government ministries.  not only for IT but any kind of gavman contracts is always subject to "commission".  to some extent hem olsem one open secret wea everyone turn a blind eye on.  but IT is lucrative business so people stand to profit more from those contracts. but for answerim question blo original poster, ating Solonut hem right: focus lo oketa areas ya fast time.  oketa big idea olsem call centre wait until umi garem capacity for supportim before umi try marketim umi seleva.  me no IT man so me stop na!

Hi all,

Could someone flick me George Dennis' contact details? nicholas.reese2 at gmail dot com

Thanks!!!

@Anonymous, You are comparing a call centers in India or elsewhere like in Malaysia, Europe, etc .., to similar estalishment in the Solomon Islands. My answer would be "NO", a call center in the Solomons for an IT sector is impossible to establish in the Solomon Islands for several reasons.
 
1)  You have to serve somewhere between 10,000 to 300,000 clients for that call center establishment to make any profitable operation. Are there at least 5,000 clients in Honiara who depend entirely on IT infrastructure to generate profit. Call center means, live support, remote support, pro-active support (you diagnose client problems before they ever notice that they have a network, components, application issues etc ...), technical support, etc ....., without waste of every minutes - each client pays for their services and that they expect their services to be available all the time. If there is any issue, client service downtime should be kept to minimal in worst case scenario, otherwise, you have to pay for every single minutes when their service is unavailable. Note, running several machines in an isolated building does not need a call center because there is no bridging/switching or routing of data between those machines to any other access point remotely.
 
2) If you want to establish a huge LAN-like core network connecting major IT-business house-holds in Honiara, thats easy, they all need to agree to the same terms for such a move (don't forget about their differences), they have the infrastrucure cost before their very eyes. Communication to the outside world is limited by the bandwidth of Satellites that service the Solomon Islands (used by Our Telekom or BeMobile). Satellites are not very reliable for IP data network, in case where you have greater numbers of Web services hosted around the country even in Honiara. Let me say, for example, if you have more than 30 Web services or Servers/Hosts in Honiara, you will likely wait for about an hour before you will see a webpage slowly appearing when accessing any site in the Solomons from around the world. This is NOT a friendly environment for IT-oriented business (if you have an isolated LAN no problem here ...).
The solution to this limited bandwidth problem to outside world is; why not having our government and private sectors agree to finance (with donors money of course :-)) undersea cabling from Brisbane or Cairns to Honiara? If you think about increasing investment to the country, this solution is a way to go.
 
3) Call center when is comes to IT means an NOC (Network Operation Centers). You have to have ICT infrastructure in placed, that simply NOT there in Honiara. Honiara will keep seeing sparsely isolated so-called IT or computer shops from every corner in towns. From my own terms, these are just shops, like any other noodle shops in town. What I have seen in Honiara you call IT is NOT IT, rather computer applications, accessories, peripherals (printers), PC, computer components or parts and basic LAN components. I have not seen any Campus like LANs, where locally routable traffic is a neccesary for IT infrastrucure. What I have seen however, is routed traffic via Our Telekom hub. Whether Our Telekom is able to inter-connect isolated LAN around Honiara is another question. In my opinion, yes they can. The question is then, do they have the bandwidth to do so?
 
4) Given the geographical location of the Solomon Islands, routing traffic to the Internet (to outside world) via the current establishment works just fine, though very slow. But is Solomon Islands really ready for foreign investments, thus, ICT availability and development? If there is an increase in foreign investment, this would mean, an increase in the number of foreign Internet users as well, including an increase in foreign online transactions. This will surely attract more interactivity with the outside world, thus the demand for higher bandwidth for services accessed within the country. Service providers such as Our Telekom will be very busy to provide this or clients services will be down the drain or there will be not much to be seen from Investment. Pull that damn cable from Australia to Honiara and everything will be fine for the future.
 
5) will continue ................ hem nomoa for now oloketa wantok!

@niuguaeli, thank you for your thoughts on this subject but ating we both talking about callcentres in two different context. When I made reference to callcentres, i was not talking about setting up for solomon islanders and businesses. i was thinking of a setup that oketa big call centres overseas can outsource work too. and not only in IT. big airlines have 24/7 callcentres. big mining companys also have them. essentially what this service does is it keeps their customers all around the world connected to the business 24/7. u are right about the infrastructure though but providing someone on the end of a telephone line with some answers to a customer half way around the world should not be too difficult to establish. i mean someone in europe or US suddenly loses their ticket and with only a phone, they call the call centre and after some verification, ma call centre providim eticket reference finish...the skills needed is really a good command of english and customer care services. i made reference to India because one of the major complaints about call centres in India is their accent...and Solomon Islanders can speak the arekwao language without too much trouble...maybe!!!

@Anonymous, thanks for comments. Let keep the this thread alive.
I work as a Network Engineer at AT&T Inc. Network Operation Center  (with about 300,000 employees worldwide) here in the northen hemisphere. I fully understand your point, we are in the same boat on that.
 
However, as I pointed out earlier, my understanding with our only SP (service provider - Our Telekom, I have no much knowledge of BeMobile so I better shut up here about BeMobile) is that, Our Telekom is the only Service Provider in the country currently having cabling infrastrucure undergroud in Honiara and several base station around the country via line of sight wireles/satellite links.
 
Outsourcing or call center you mentioned would require a local SP and its communication infrastructure for voice traffic, Our Telekom for instance, has such infrastructures. Say you wanna move Quantas Airlines outsource or call centers offshore and place one such center in Honiara (just as in India). Quanta Airlines needs to use Our Telekom infrastrucure such as Data Center, ATM lines, Frame Relay (if any) Switches, higher performance Satellites,  dedicated phone lines, etc, etc ...., If Our Telekom is willing to offer extra dedicated lines to be made available for Quantas Airline customers/clients voice traffic, fine, thats something that must be agreed by both Telekom and QA base on their SLA (service level agreement).
 
Afterall, it all boils down to whether Our Telekom has the financial means for additional communication systems, laying down new dedicated phones lines for the center means digging in extra ditches and trenches to that location, man-power comes into play, spacing for the trenches in town is another issue too, every business lines in town would be affected if old tunnels or trenches holding operating phones have to be re-organised along with newer lines. There is a lot more engineering issues that is to my mind, beyond doubt will hinder Our Telekom to go for that Option unless Quantas Airline agrees to meet the cost. On the other hand, Quantas Airlines will not go for that option by itself too for the same reason.
 
Realizing centers elsewhere to Honiara as in the case of the example above, would also means increase in dedicated phone lines, as we all know, dedicated lines are expensive. Bandwidth for dedicated lines are fixed, either limited, thus, you have to keep buying dedicated lines for every desk you would want to place a phone on to carry your voice traffic around the world as that is the definition of a call center or outsourcing and support. Speaking Good English is NOT the reason for most businesses around the world for a call center. Where manpower and communication infrastructure are cheaper at all time low is...! I have first hand experience in this environment.
 
There is a cheaper approach however, and that is for such a call center SLAs with Our Telekom to go VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) to carry voice traffic over IP data network. There is a catch however, Our Telekom hub is communicating to the Internet (VoIP uses Internet instead of dedicated phone lines) via Satellites. As I mentioned earlier on in one of the threads, using Satellite to traverse IP network data traffic is not reliable -  if that is what you would like to call "data traffic for the call center". Do note, our region is prone to bad weather conditions and this is the greatest enermy for Satellites data traversal - 24/7 service support is ideally in times of bad weather means interruption to the flow of services especially, if this is telephony.
 
One last point however, if Quantas Airlines has the money, Our Telekom has the money, our goverment supports the idea and help provision standards for both parties to provide world wide customer services as such, THIS IS A GREAT IDEA as it will help a lot of our IT-minded young people to achieve a Job they ever dreamed of. 
 
Iu fala stori moa, bae mi rest lelebet lo hiere fastaem ...