Blog — Feb 7, 2026
PTC'26: Sustaining connectivity in the Asia-Pacific digital divide
Highlights
- The digital divide issue in Asia Pacific, especially in the Pacific Islands, was one of the key issues at the PTC’26 conference in Hawai’i. While digital infrastructure is advancing rapidly, the challenge of bringing true connectivity to every corner of the region remains a key concern.
- Developing APAC markets — including India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Pakistan, and the Pacific Islands — had fewer than 40% of households connected to fixed-broadband services at end-2025, underscoring the region’s significant connectivity gap.
- Cambodia, Myanmar, Laos, Pakistan and the Philippines have the least affordable fiber services in the region, with consumers spending over 2% of gross national income per capita on fiber broadband.
Broadband connectivity: From coverage to meaningful use
At this year’s Pacific Telecom Council conference (PTC’26), held in Honolulu, Hawai’i, Jan. 18-21, much of the conversation was about AI-ready data centers, smarter networks, and the latest in subsea cables and satellites. But beyond the tech talk, the digital divide issue in Asia Pacific, especially in the Pacific Islands, formed a consistent theme. While digital infrastructure is advancing rapidly, the challenge of bringing true connectivity to every corner of the region remains a key concern.
S&P Global Market Intelligence Inc. estimates that by the end of 2025, only 57.2% of households in the Asia-Pacific region subscribed to fixed broadband services — highlighting significant potential for further growth. Although subscriptions are expected to increase at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 2.7% over the next six years, fixed broadband penetration is projected to reach 61% by 2031.
Fixed-broadband penetration varies widely across Asia-Pacific markets. By the end of 2025, Hong Kong, Singapore, and South Korea had surpassed 100% penetration, with other advanced economies such as Australia, New Zealand, and Japan not far behind. In contrast, many developing markets — including India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Pakistan, and the Pacific Islands — had fewer than 40% of households connected to fixed-broadband services, underscoring the region’s significant connectivity gap.
The Asia-Pacific region demonstrates a striking dichotomy in fiber deployment. While fiber is projected to account for 88.2% of all fixed-broadband households by 2031, up from 83.2% in 2021, actual service take-up rates remain below 50% in nearly half of the 18 analyzed markets analyzed by S&P Global Market Intelligence research. This disconnect between infrastructure availability and adoption represents the core challenge facing the region.
Despite infrastructure improvements, affordability remains a critical constraint, particularly for affordability of high-speed fiber services. Cambodia, Myanmar, Laos, Pakistan and the Philippines have the least affordable fiber services in the region, with consumers spending over 2% of gross national income per capita on fiber broadband. While services are relatively affordable in India and Indonesia overall, significant income gaps persist between urban and rural areas. Broadband affordability is even more problematic in Pacific Island nations. In Tonga, for example, households that use broadband on a moderate-to-medium basis allocate more than 5 % of GNI per capita to it, according to remarks by Suella Hansen, director at Network Strategies Ltd.
Competitive shock from LEO expands options while creating long-term investment questions
Several PTC’26 sessions, including "Compete or Coexist: Navigating Telecom Transformation in Pacific Island Nations” and "Addressing the Digital Divide in Emerging Markets and SIDS" (Small Island Developing States) argued that the Pacific island region is entering a new market phase driven by the arrival of new submarine cables and Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite broadband, which is reducing latency and historical satellite broadband pricing while challenging legacy operator economics. This matters for the digital divide because LEO can quickly improve access and performance, but can also weaken the domestic investment engine if revenue migrates away from local operators that still carry staff, field operations, and long-lived infrastructure. These concerns were expressed by Christina Lasaqa, CEO of Solomon Telekom Co. Ltd, and Tenanoia Simona, CEO of Tuvalu Telecommunication Corp.
The "compete or coexist" theme was ultimately less about resisting LEO and more about shaping market rules so new entrants complement national connectivity goals rather than bypass them. Priorities for enabling coexistence include more consistent approaches to universal service obligations, fees and taxes across competing platforms.
Hybrid networks are now the standard for remote islands, and network reliability is a key measure of inclusion
A consistent takeaway across sessions was that island connectivity cannot be solved with an "either fiber or satellite" debate. Submarine cables can transform connectivity for main islands, but remote islands remain structurally hard to serve with terrestrial infrastructure alone, keeping satellite in the mix for the long run. At the satellite leaders’ luncheon on Jan. 19, participants emphasized that LEO roadmaps are increasingly targeting underserved scenarios — such as community gateway models and direct-to-device services. The discussion between Dan Dooley, chief commercial officer at Lynk Global Inc., Mark Dankberg, chairman of the board and executive chairman at Viasat Inc., and Brendan Meyer, senior regional manager at SpaceX, also highlighted the importance of redundancy and emergency response capabilities, which become essential elements of inclusive connectivity whenever disasters repeatedly disrupt ground-based networks.
Speakers at the "Fiber Without Borders: Connecting the Global Digital Infrastructure” panel emphasized that fiber remains the foundational layer — not only for households and enterprises but also for providing backhaul and route diversity that make hybrid national architectures scalable and reliable. In this view, having multiple subsea cable routes, backup land-based options, and planning for bottlenecks is tied directly to the digital divide issue, because the most remote communities are usually the least able to cope with service outages.
Hawaiʻi’s role as a Pacific hub highlights how global connectivity and last-mile equity must be solved together
Hawaiʻi was presented as both a strategic regional node and a practical example for island deployment challenges. The session "Infrastructure in Hawai’i” positioned the state as a critical link between Asia, the continental USA, Australia, and the wider Pacific, while also emphasizing that its internal deployment realities — geographic isolation, dense vegetation, and active volcanoes — make broadband expansion complex and expensive.
The investment landscape demonstrates how seriously Hawaiʻi and its partners are addressing these issues. Key commitments include:
- $1.7 billion from Hawaiian Telcom Holdco Inc. in partnership with federal and state agencies.
- $149 million in federal broadband funding.
- $37.4 million from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) for middle-mile infrastructure.
- $1 billion for the "Pacific Connect” undersea fiber upgrade initiative led by Alphabet Inc.'s Google LLC, aimed at boosting capacity and resilience. The cables aim to connect Hawaiʻi with Japan, the continental U.S., the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI), and Guam.
Collectively, these investments position Hawaiʻi to become the first US state where every household is connected to fiber broadband by the end of 2026.
The takeaway for other Pacific islands is to see strong middle-mile networks as a way to boost overall connectivity, instead of trying to replicate Hawai'i’s US federal funding approach. The path forward will require governments, businesses and international partners to work together — a recurring theme across digital divide-focused sessions at PTC’26. Stakeholders must develop connectivity solutions that are not only technically possible but also affordable for both providers and users throughout the varied Asia-Pacific region.
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