Pago Pago, AMERICAN SAMOA — Two weeks after Gov. Lemanu Peleti Mauga delivered his State of the Territory Address before a joint session of the Fono, several members of the community — as well as some residing off-island, have queried Samoa News about whether the governor has mentioned issues with the American Samoa TeleCommunications Authority  (ASTCA).

The queries came through the Samoa News “Just Asking” column, with some pointing out that ASTCA is government owned and a competitor of privately owned Bluesky Communications.

In his verbal address delivered in Samoan, the governor noted major ASG achievements in 2021 have boosted the local economy and the Governor’s State of the Territory Comprehensive Reports does include ASTCA’s achievements from last year.

It recalls that as a result of the American Samoa Government’s $30 million-dollar investment into the new Hawaiki submarine fiber optic cable, the territory “now has significantly more bandwidth than most small island developing states in the region.”

It says that Hawaiki Cable has reported capturing 80% of the local Broadband Market” and it has dramatically increased connectivity and commercial opportunities and has led to the creation of call centers utilizing dynamic Voice Over IP services that have optimized call quality, simplicity, and value.

Additionally, the fiber-to-the-premises project — commonly known as the BLAST (Broadband Linking the American Samoa Territory) project — ensures that end users have state-of-the-art access to this new bandwidth, opening opportunities for developments across many industries and sectors.

“This new connectivity is well positioned to support the much-needed diversification of our economy,” the report said, noting that ASTCA has worked towards leveraging the power of the people by strengthening capabilities and improving their performance.

“Although it has been a year of incremental change and a year of challenges, ASTCA, under the lead of its new CEO, has overcome great obstacles,” the report claims. 

“On a macro level, the accomplishments of ASTCA during FY2021 have been to remove the technology and business constraints that have impaired our ability to be a genuine user-focused and sales-driven organization,” it says. And this ranges from broadening the LTE network for on boarding devices to continuous employee training and development.

“Management’s goal has been to broaden the perspective of our employees and make them balance sheet aware of their functional efficiencies and role as servants to the community,” it says.

Furthermore, ASTCA has continued to make progressive improvements across the organization that have yielded results in the functional areas of Retail & Distribution, Engineering, Human Resource Development, Sales and Marketing, to Customer Service and Finance.

Last October, ASTCA launched mobile roaming services in the U.S and all its territories in which ASTCA customers now have the convenience of being able to travel using their ASTCA SIM card without having to sign up or purchase a new SIM card from another carrier when traveling to Hawaii or the Mainland.

This service was traditionally available only for businesses or postpaid accounts.