The Tonga Communications Corporation has accumulated a loss of $50,000 during the five days that its international, inter-island telephone, and internet services were disrupted last week.

The communications black out began when the Intelsat satellite that links Tonga to the outside world went out of action at 12.30 pm on Saturday, January 15.

TCC Engineering Manager, Sione Veikoso, said on January 20 that since Saturday they had restored 60% of their service, and hopefully they would be back in full operation this week.

He said that among the telephone links that had to be re-connected was the domestic inter-island connection to the islands of Niuafo'ou and Niuatoputapu.

Sione said that it had taken TCC a lot longer to reconnect their satellite link because of the greater number of carriers they now use to connect Tonga to the outside world. TCC uses a total of ten carriers.

On the other hand Tonga's other telecommunications provider, Tonfön, uses only one carrier, and it took them only 26 hours to restore their service following the black out.