turning into problems

Tuvalu's Internet dreams turning into problems

By Michael Field

It was the ultimate rags-to-rich es’ story; the world-wide head line grabbing story of the way the Internet was going to make the people of Tuvalu the world’s richest

people per capita.

Prime Minister Bikenibeu Paeniu in August last year announced that the first payment of US$5O million would arrive in Funafuti just before Christmas, most of it going on the country’s schools.

The money did not arrive and if it ever does it will be a lot less.

Tuvalu, as it happens, is not the first to find the promised riches of the Internet sel

dom turn into real money in the bank. The story began with the realisation that Tuvalu had a potentially useful suffix granted it by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority, “.tv”.

Other Pacific countries had several years earlier been down the same track, notably Tonga with its “.to” and Niue with “.ni’.

Tonga’s Crown Prince Tupuoto’a man aged, in a way only Tongan royalty can, to cream off that potentially lucrative market to his own company - although in the Internet world, word has it the riches did not match

the expectations.

Tuvalu set about to investigate the poten tial with the help of the United Nations Development Programme in Suva and the

International Telecommunications Union.

Together they came up with a partner, Information.ca Corp of Toronto, Canada.

They were selected ahead of the two big names in Internet domain names, Ixtel of Britain and Netnames of the US.

The CEO of Information.ca is a 28-year old Jason Chapnik, also president of a com pany called Home Select Canada. For the Tuvalu operation a new company was formed, The .TV Corporation.

In August 1998 Tuvalu, which had made millions from leasing its international tele phone numbers to sex line operators, announced the joint venture, saying they expected to earn up to US$65 million a year from the operation.

That would be remarkable money for a country of just 9500 people. “We are delight ed this agreement will improve not only the Tuvaluan standard of living but permit us to help other South Pacific nations,” Mr Paeniu said. “Our people are already dreaming about what to do with the money.” With an Internet registration page Mr Chapnik found

he was getting massive, uncritical publicity around the world. “We launched a week ago and it has been an absolute whirlwind of interest.. Registrations are pouring in from around the world, because world-wide it makes sense to people what Dot TV means,” he told one interview.

“We expect all of the major corporations to sign up,” Mr Chapnik said, including tele vision, media, magazine, newspaper and film companies. “We are absolutely over whelmed by the interest. It’s just been stag

gering, world-wide.”

He was a coy about the financial arrange ments, simply saying the US$65 million fig ure was “a bit over the top”. With the inte gration of the Internet into television he was confident of success. “We think this one is the pearl of the Internet marketing world.”

The registration process is on the web at “Internet.tv” where it says .TV will be a powerful brand; “Ask a child which Internet site they would rather visit, KIDS.COM or KIDS.TV?” It costs US$lOOO to register a domain name and US$5OO every year to renew.

Under the deal a first payment of US$5O million was due in Funafuti before Christmas, but Communications Minister Otinielu Tausi said it had not shown up.

He said 200 companies had registered and paid, giving a total revenue of just US$2OO,OOO. He confirmed that they had expected US$5O million and might still one day get that amount.

“The deal is still on, we have just made some modifications to it,” he said. “Things didn’t work out as intended, so what we did was make some modifications to the deal, but it is still on. There are still feelings and belief that we will pull through”.

“We believe, now, looking back, four months is a very short period of time to have a new thing and get a proper response. So we are giving more time for people to come in. We have a strong belief that it will mate rialise.”

The new schedule of payments would be more realistic. “We are phasing out the 50 million,” Mr Tausi said. “We’re still looking at millions but the time span is different. It will bring a lot of money.”

The .TV Corporation will make its first payment in two months.

Asked how much, the minister would only say: “We can leave that until later on.”

Mr Chapnik, the minister said, was “doing a great job”. “If we give this thing the chance to work, it will do that.” ■