By Mary Lyn Fonua

After two weeks of scrambling for satellite connectivity, one of Tonga's two main telecommunications networks started rolling out more data capacity last week, but there's simply not enough capacity to meet national demand, and allocation of bandwidth has to be carefully managed until the fibre optic cable is repaired.

Tonga went into digital darkness when its international telecommunications fibre optic cable was cut during the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai volcanic eruption and tsunamis on January 15. The domestic submarine cable linking the capital to Vava'u was also cut, severing outer island communications.

CEO of Tonga Communications Corporation, Sione Veikoso, told Matangi Tonga on Friday Feb. 4, that they are progressively bringing in more satellite bandwidth, while waiting for the fibre optic cable to be repaired.

“The total capacity that we are providing at the moment is more than 250 megabits per second,” he said. This represents about one eighth of the amount of bandwidth that Tonga needs to restore normal communications.

“We need more than 2000 megabits per second in order for us to be able to feed the whole data demand for Tonga, so that includes mobile internet, business customers, fibre customers, ADSL customers; all of these need more than 2000 Mbps,” he said.

“So we do need more capacity in order to satisfy all demands for our data network.”

The 250 Mbps coming through satellite is not enough to feed the mobile internet customers.

“Although we have released a lot of our fixed line internet customers, we haven't released 100% yet. Because if we do, then those people will be almost unable to access it.

“So we are only releasing a certain amount of customers. And then we monitor their bandwidth, and then if we see there's still room, then we will release some more.

“Unfortunately, if we release 100% of the mobile data, internet on mobile certainly that will be too small....So what we have done, we have scheduled the mobile data customer, just to start from 5:00pm-5:00am.”

Main challenges

Sione said that capacity and equipment are two big challenges in restoring connectivity for Tonga.

“The way the satellite providers are releasing bandwidth its very difficult for them to deal with big demand at short notice. Normally, if you require a big satellite increase, you will ask more than three months prior. They have to reallocate certain areas of bandwidth and give you a bit, because you can't buy small bits and pieces.

“So we are bringing it in progressively.”

Outer Islands

TCC has  established some internet communications at its base stations for Ha'apai and Vava'u.

“We have established some internet communications into our station, similar to the set up we do here, we offer a free wifi at the base station at Pangai and also at Neiafu.

“At Neiafu we also added the mobile voice for the area covered by our main base station, extending to Vaipua, Holonga, Neiafu Tahi, not just Neiafu. The base station can transmit and receive mobile signals at 'Atalika, with mobile voice although it's congested sometimes.”

“Ha'apai, same as Vava'u, we have internet communications to our station and offered to the business and humanitarian aid efforts there and also our team is working to restore the mobile voice similar to Vava'u, so we are currently working on that.”

Sione admits that the communications breakdown is a difficult challenge for Tonga, while waiting for the cable to be restored.

“We know what to do, we have some equipment, but there are some other equipment, which we needed to ship in, but certainly the biggest challenge for us is capacity.

“As I mentioned before, you can't buy a big capacity of satellite capacity and just leave it on the table awaiting a catastrophe like this. You can only buy a certain piece affordable, to be paid every month, at least you can restore part of the service you need at the end, and work your way progressively to restore most of the service, depending on how long it will take for the cable to be repaired from the disaster,” he said.

Tonga's telecommunications teams have been working pretty hard over the last three weeks.

“Absolutely, day and night,” said Sione.

The cable repair ship arrived in the area of the break on Thursday Feb. 3, and started looking for the cable, which had moved from where it was supposed to be.

See also:
ROV searches for Tonga's broken fibre optic cable - moved by tsunamis or shock waves