This article is about

communication Communication (from la, communicare, meaning "to share" or "to be in relation with") is usually defined as the transmission of information. The term may also refer to the message communicated through such transmissions or the field of inquir ...

s systems in

American Samoa American Samoa ( sm, Amerika Sāmoa, ; also ' or ') is an unincorporated territory of the United States located in the South Pacific Ocean, southeast of the island country of Samoa. Its location is centered on . It is east of the International ...

Telephone

Main lines in use: 10,400 (2004)
''country comparison to the world:'' 202 Mobile cellular: 2,200 (2004)
''country comparison to the world:'' 210 Telephone system:
''domestic:'' good telex, telegraph, facsimile and cellular telephone services; domestic satellite system with 1

Comsat COMSAT (Communications Satellite Corporation) is a global telecommunications company based in the United States. By 2007, it had branches in Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, Venezuela and several other countries in the Americas. A ...

earth station
''international:'' satellite earth station - 1

Intelsat Intelsat S.A. (formerly INTEL-SAT, INTELSAT, Intelsat) is a multinational satellite services provider with corporate headquarters in Luxembourg and administrative headquarters in Tysons Corner, Virginia, United States. Originally formed as In ...

(

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...

)
''international access code:'' +1.684 (in the

North American Numbering Plan The North American Numbering Plan (NANP) is a telephone numbering plan for twenty-five regions in twenty countries, primarily in North America and the Caribbean. This group is historically known as World Zone 1 and has the international callin ...

Area code 684 Area code 684 is a telephone area code in the North American Numbering Plan (NANP) for American Samoa. The numbering plan area comprises the seven islands of Tutuila, Aunuʻu, Ofu, Olosega, Taʻū, Swains Island, and Rose Atoll. History Previous ...

)

Radio

Radio broadcast stations: AM 0, FM 4 commercial, 4 non-commercial, 2 LPFM, shortwave 0 (2005) Radios: 57,000 (1997)

Television

Television broadcast stations: 4 (2006) Televisions: 14,000 (1997) See List of television stations in American Samoa.

Internet

In 2009, American Samoa was connected to the Internet using the

American Samoa Hawaii Cable The American Samoa Hawaii Cable (ASH Cable) was a fibre-optic cable connecting Hawaii and American Samoa. Construction The cable has two segments. The first connects Keawaula, Oahu, Hawaii, with 'Ili'ili, American Samoa. It's made up of a section ...

(ASH)

undersea communications cable A submarine communications cable is a cable laid on the sea bed between land-based stations to carry telecommunication signals across stretches of ocean and sea. The first submarine communications cables laid beginning in the 1850s carried tel ...

that increased bandwidth from 20 Mbit/s to 1 Gbit/s. The project used a defunct PacRim East cable built in 1993 that previously connected Hawaii with New Zealand. The cable system now connects

Samoa Samoa, officially the Independent State of Samoa; sm, Sāmoa, and until 1997 known as Western Samoa, is a Polynesian island country consisting of two main islands (Savai'i and Upolu); two smaller, inhabited islands (Manono Island, Manono an ...

to American Samoa and then to

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only stat ...

where it will connect to global submarine networks. In July 2018, the Hawaiki cable was activated with a branch providing a 200Gb/s connection from Pago Pago to Hawaii, New Zealand, Australia, and Oregon.

Situation in 2016

In 2012, American Samoa had the most expensive Internet access service in the U.S. according to ''Engadget''. Under Governor

Togiola Tulafono Togiola Talalelei A. Tulafono (born February 28, 1947) is an American Samoan politician and lawyer who served as the 6th Governor of American Samoa. He is a member of the Democratic Party. He had previously served as lieutenant governor, taking t ...

investment in a fibre optic network to replace aging copper infrastructure across all the islands of American Samoa and the construction in 2015 of a 1.2Gbit/s satellite uplink via

O3b Networks O3b Networks Ltd. was a network communications service provider building and operating a medium Earth orbit (MEO) satellite constellation primarily intended to provide voice and data communications to mobile operators and Internet service prov ...

which more than doubled available bandwidth to the rest of the world resulted in broadband Internet service becoming more affordable, with the price of the cheapest available residential package decreasing from $75/month to $50/month and download speeds of the base package increasing from 256kbit/s to 768kbit/s. The improved connectivity to the outside world has revived previously stalled hopes that a call center could be opened in American Samoa, boosting the local economy.

Aleki Sene, Sr. Telecommunications Center

The Aleki Sene, Sr. Telecommunications Center in Tafuna is the tallest building in

(it is 4 stories tall). Construction of the building began in 2009 and ended in 2011.http://www.sraa.co.nz/Projects/Commercial/ASTCA+Telecommunications+Building.html "ASTCA Telecommunications building - Swan Railley Architects". Retrieved September 4, 2019. Out of the tallest buildings of each U.S. state and territory, the Aleki Sene, Sr. Telecommunications Center is the shortest.

References

Economy of American Samoa American Samoan culture +American Samoa {{AmericanSamoa-stub