New satellite link opens for Niuas [1]
Monday, April 27, 1998 - 09:30. Updated on Thursday, December 3, 2015 - 18:15.
From Matangi Tonga Magazine, Vol. 13, no. 1, April 1998.
Tonga Telecommunications opened its new domestic satellite system, DOMSAT, to link Tongatapu, Ha‘apai, Vava‘u, Niuatoputapu and Niuafo‘ou in February 1998.
Following this Telecom was expanding and upgrading telephone exchanges in Tongatapu, and Busby Kautoke, of Tonga Telecom, said that by the end of this year all telephone exchanges in Tongatapu should be switched over from monologue to digital systems.
The introduction of the DOMSAT system at the cost of $4 million replaced the $6.77 million tropospheric scatter system, introduced by Cable and Wireless in 1987.
Busby said that the new DOMSAT system would also enable people in Vava‘u and Ha‘apai to transmit facsimiles and send e-mail messages. He said that in the Niuas similar services can be offered, but at a cost. At both Niuatoputapu and Niuafo‘ou, the branches of the Tonga Development Bank can send and receive facsimile messages.
Pushing ahead with its development program, Busby said that by April 15 Tonga Telecom would finalise a loan agreement with the European Investment Bank to finance the introduction of Wireless Local Loop or radio telephone to be used in areas where there are no telephone lines, such as the Halaliku in Tongatapu and the rural areas of Vava‘u and Ha‘apai. He said that once the loan agreement was finalised that the project would be put out on tender.
The Tonga Telecommunications Commission has a long term plan to increase the number of telephone lines in Tonga from the 6,950 it had in 1996 to 13,620 by the year 2000.