Results for Communications

Tonga Cable Ltd. has moved into a new two-storey building at Sopu ready to operate a US$33 million submarine fibre-optic cable telecommunications network for Tonga, expected to be completed by the end of July 2013.

Alcatel-Lucent Submarine Network of France won the contract to lay a submarine fibre-optic cable system from Fiji to Tonga, which is expected to be in service by June 2013.

The General Manager of Tonga Broadcasting Commission Elenoa 'Amanaki (63) hands over the reins on public broadcasting when her four-year contract ends on Tuesday, September 30.

When Tonfon increases the capacity of its Global System for Mobile Communication from 5,000 to 50,000 subscribers before the end of this year, it will have the capacity to provide a mobile phone for one in every two people in Tonga.

A former technician with the Tonga Telephone and Telegraph Department back in 1957, Alexander James McGregor (80), from Grey Lynn, Auckland, visited Tonga for the third time in November. When he first arrived in Tonga in 1957 homes were thatched huts, and there were no aeroplanes, just ferries. There were a few vehicles and the telephone system operated through one switchboard.From Matangi Tonga Magazine Vol. 18, no. 3, December 2003.

Telecommunications managers in the Pacific are looking at how island communities can take advantage of new telephone and internet technologies. From Matangi Tonga Magazine Vol. 18, no. 3, December 2003.

Two new mobile telephone base stations for Tongatapu were set up by the Tonga Communications Corporation last year, at a cost of $500,000 and more stations are planned for other islands of Tonga in 2003. From Matangi Tonga Magazine Vol. 18, no. 1, March 2003.

When a new mobile phone provider, Tonfön (Shoreline Communications) launched its telephone service on July 31, Tonga became the only Pacific island country to allow two competing telecommunications companies. From Matangi Tonga Magazine Vol. 17, no. 2, August 2002.

The thrust by Tonga’s two telecommunications companies, the Tonga Communications Corporation to introduce a new cell phone service, and by Tonfön to introduce a wireless telecommunications system, this year met a number of setbacks, which meant that both companies were unable to meet their July deadlines. From Matangi Tonga Magazine, Vol. 16, no. 3, December 2001.