Tonga Cable System is a

submarine A submarine (or sub) is a watercraft capable of independent operation underwater. It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability. The term is also sometimes used historically or colloquially to refer to remotely op ...

fiber-optic cable A fiber-optic cable, also known as an optical-fiber cable, is an assembly similar to an electrical cable, but containing one or more optical fibers that are used to carry light. The optical fiber elements are typically individually coated with ...

system connecting

Tonga Tonga (, ; ), officially the Kingdom of Tonga ( to, Puleʻanga Fakatuʻi ʻo Tonga), is a Polynesian country and archipelago. The country has 171 islands – of which 45 are inhabited. Its total surface area is about , scattered over in ...

with

Fiji Fiji ( , ,; fj, Viti, ; Fiji Hindi: फ़िजी, ''Fijī''), officially the Republic of Fiji, is an island country in Melanesia, part of Oceania in the South Pacific Ocean. It lies about north-northeast of New Zealand. Fiji consists ...

, where it connects to other international networks. It is long and was activated in 2013. It has

cable landing point A cable landing point is the location where a submarine or other underwater cable makes landfall. The term is most often used for the landfall points of submarine telecommunications cables and submarine power cables. The landing will either be ...

s at Sopu, a suburb of

Nukuʻalofa Nukualofa (; ) is the capital and largest city of Tonga. It is located on the north coast of the island of Tongatapu, in the country's southernmost island group. History First western records of Nukualofa On 10 June 1777, British captain James ...

, and

Suva Suva () is the capital and largest city of Fiji. It is the home of the country's largest metropolitan area and serves as its major port. The city is located on the southeast coast of the island of Viti Levu, in Rewa Province, Central Divi ...

, Fiji. The project was funded by

Asian Development Bank The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is a regional development bank established on 19 December 1966, which is headquartered in the Ortigas Center located in the city of Mandaluyong, Metro Manila, Philippines. The bank also maintains 31 field office ...

and the

World Bank The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans and grants to the governments of low- and middle-income countries for the purpose of pursuing capital projects. The World Bank is the collective name for the Interna ...

. An extension of the cable to

Haʻapai Haʻapai is a group of islands, islets, reefs, and shoals in the central part of Tonga. It has a combined land area of . The Tongatapu island group lies to its south, and the Vavaʻu group lies to its north. Seventeen of the Haʻapai islands are ...

and

Vavaʻu Vavau is an island group, consisting of one large island ( ʻUtu Vavaʻu) and 40 smaller ones, in Tonga. It is part of Vavaʻu District, which includes several other individual islands. According to tradition, the Maui god created both Tongata ...

was commissioned in April 2018.

History

On January 20, 2019, the cable broke and disrupted Internet services to Tonga. Satellite communications were used as a backup. Three years later, the 2022 Hunga Tonga–Hunga Ha'apai eruption disrupted it again. A specialist repair ship from SubCom could take days to get to the fault site, as it was deployed from Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea. It was expected to take at least two weeks to repair the system, assuming no new eruption affected the zone. Repair of the cable to Nukuʻalofa, of which 55 kilometres had disappeared, presumed buried by an underwater avalanche, was completed on 21 February, with testing and recommissioning expected within 24 hours. The extension from Nukuʻalofa to Haʻapai and Vavaʻu remained damaged.

References

External links

Tonga Cable System Landing Stations
Submarine communications cables in the Pacific Ocean 2013 establishments in Tonga 2022 in Tonga {{telecomm-stub