An under-water telecommunication fiber optical cable network to connect Tonga to the rest of the world should be in operation before the end of 2012, according to Paula Ma'u, the Chief Executive Officer for Tonga's Ministry of Communication and Information.

Once the cable network is in operation the speed of transmitting digital information to and from Tonga is expected to increase several hundred times. He said that the maximum speed of the wireless of about 36 mega bites that we are using now will increase to a maximum speed 350mb with the new fiber optical cable network.

The underwater cable is owned by the Southern Cross Cable Network, which has already connected Fiji, and a Tonga connection will be via Fiji.

A public company, the Tonga Cable Limited (TCL) has been established and they will own the services to be provided by TCL in Tonga.

Paula said that TCL is 80% owned by the Tonga government and 20% by the Tonga Communication Corporation (TCC).

He said that TCL will be the wholesaler of telecommunication services to TCC, Digicel and other Internet service providers (ISPs, which in turn will retail them to the public. Paula was certain that the new service would be cheaper than the current rate.

Meanwhile, Paula said that negotiations were well underway and the signing of financial agreements with the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, the two main financiers of the $US29 million project, is scheduled to be signed in September.

The laying of the under water cable would start soon after the signing of the financial agreement and a high speed network for Tonga should be in operation by November-December next year.

Paula said that there has been concern over the reliability of the service coming from Fiji because of the political instability in that country, compared to a service offered by another company, the Pacific Fiber, which runs from Australia to New Zealand and onward to Los Angeles.

But the problem with Pacific Fiber, according to Paula is that they have not been able to capitalize their proposed operation.

The major shareholder in Southern Cross Cable Network is 50% New Zealand Telecom, 40% by an Australian interest and 10% by an American company.

Paula said that the advances of the Pacific Fiber are that it is a new company and through "spurs" in the cable Vava'u and Ha'apai could have been directly connected to the service, whereas with Southern Cross the cable will land in Nuku'alofa, and the Tonga Cable Ltd will be responsible for laying their own cable to Ha'apai and Vava'u, and any of the other island groups.