By Pesi Fonua

Tonga Cable Ltd. is still trying to confirm what caused Tonga’s cable internet black out from 8.30pm Sunday, 20 January, Samuela Fonua, Board Chairman of Tonga Cable Ltd. told Matangi Tonga on Wednesday.

Samuela said that after reporting the failure to a French company that is responsible for the maintenance of the fibre optic submarine cable /internet network that connects Tonga to the rest of the world, they have been constantly liaising with experts to try and identify where and what caused the breakdown in communications.

He said that so far there’s a presumption that there is damage to the cable that connects Tongatapu to Vava‘u and to Fiji but he admitted that nothing has been confirmed.

The French company currently has a ship in Apia, and they could be in Tonga within a short notice once the breakdown is identified. The cost of the operation will be over $1 million pa'anga.

Samuela explained that the cable is laid on the seabed, buried in a shallow trench. The possibility of a damage to the submarine cable can most likely be caused by either a powerful movement on the seabed or damage to the cable as it comes ashore in Tonga onto the reef and land area at the Tonga Cable Ltd. office at Sopu.

So as Tonga’s two international telecommunication networks and ISPs, Tonga Communications Corporation and Digicel International Network are struggling to find a way for Tonga to communicate with the outside world, the search is still going on to identify what caused the cable outage.

The three major shareholders of the Tonga Cable Ltd. are the Government of Tonga, Tonga Communications Corporation and Digicel Tonga Ltd.

The Board of Directors of Tonga Cable Ltd. consists of the Chairman Samuela Fonua and members, Timote Katoanga, Cliff Fruean and Piveni Piukala.

With regards to regards to if Tonga has a Plan B, to restore communications, Samuela said that the issue of a Plan B had been with Tonga Cable right from the beginning, but a Plan B had never been implemented.