Semisi Panuve has been appointed as the new Chief Executive Officer for Tonga Cable Limited (TCL) effective from 2 March.

The TCL Board made the appointment following approval by the Prime Minister and Minister for Public Enterprises, Hon. Dr Pohiva Tu‘i‘onetoa.

The Board includes Acting Chair ‘Ipolito Lasalo representing the Tongan Government, Pepe Christian Fruean from Digicel Tonga, Sione Veikoso from Tonga Communications Corporation (TCC), Sione ‘Uta’atu from the Ministry of Public Enterprises; Timote Laume and Sosafate Kolo from TCL management.

Semisi is an engineer by profession, and was Deputy Chief Executive Officer of TongaSat.

Tonga Cable Limited is a state owned enterprise, that is partly owned by the Tonga Government, providing high speed internet.

TCL was formed in November 2009, to build and manage a submarine fibre optic cable to connect Tonga to an international network service.

Tonga was first connected through a Submarine Optic Fibre Cable in August 2013 to the Southern Cross Cable network in Fiji, and onwards to the Equinix data centre in Australia, the international hub and Tonga’s gateway to the rest of the world.

The management of Tonga’s Submarine Optic Fibre Cable service was the responsibility of the Tonga Cable Ltd. Initially, the two share holders of Tonga Cable Ltd were the Tonga Government as the major shareholder and the Tonga Communications Corporation.

In 2017, to further extend the service to Ha’apai and Vava’u, the Tonga Cable Ltd. increased its number of its shareholders to three: Tonga Government 66.66%, Tonga Communications Corporation 16.67% and Digicel Tonga Ltd. 16.67%