First Wholesale Communications Licence for Tonga Cable Ltd [1]
Wednesday, October 19, 2011 - 17:36. Updated on Wednesday, September 11, 2013 - 09:54.
Tonga took another step toward connecting up to the Southern Cross Submarine Fiber Optic in Fiji and to the world high-speed communication network yesterday, October 18 when the Prime Minister, Lord Tu'ivakano presented Robert Bolouri, the manager of Tonga Cable Limited with a Wholesale Communications Licence.
Tonga Cable Ltd (TCL) established in 2009 is Tonga's only cable company. The licence, the first to be issued, authorizes TCL to provide wholesale telecommunications networks to telecommunications carriers, including the Tonga Communications Corporation (TCC), the Digicel Group and other Internet Service Providers (ISPs).
The Tongan government is the major shareholder of TCL with 80% and the other 20% is held by the Tonga Communications Corporation TCC. Robert said that in the future TCL would become a public company.
Tonga's aim to connect to world at a competitive speed, became a reality on September 9 when the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank approved a $34 million grant for Tonga to build a submarine fiber optic cable to connect Tonga to the Southern Cross cable in Fiji.
Robert Bolouri said that bidding for the laying of the submarine fiber optic cable from Tonga to Fiji was opened on 16 September and would close on 23 November. He said that construction work had been scheduled to start at the end of March and it should be completed by mid-2013.
Once Tongatapu is connected to the fiber optic communication network, the service should become faster and cheaper.
Robert said that Phase Two of the project, to lay domestic fiber optic cables to Vava'u and Ha'apai would take place in in another three or four years when a submarine fiber optic cable will connect Vava'u and Ha'apai to the service.
"The traffic to Vava'u and Ha'apai will not be able to support the service there. The Tongatapu overseas service should be able to subsidize the domestic service," said Robert.
Currently, Tonga's slow internet service means businesses and organizations who rely on the internet, have to spend a large amount of time online with a negative impact on productivity. Online financial services are slow and other businesses are frustrated by the time taken for data transfer.