The internet connectivity restoration in Tonga was delayed until mid-August after the cable repair ship tasked with fixing the nation’s only domestic subsea cable broke down. The ship, which has been stuck in Fiji with a damaged drive shaft, was originally sent to repair the Tonga Domestic Cable Extension (TDCE). This cable connects the main island of Tongatapu with the northern islands of Vava’u and Ha’apai, which have been down for several weeks.
Stan Ahio, acting communications director for the government of Tonga, reported that the drive shaft was damaged after a fishing net became wrapped around one of the ship’s propellers. The ship has already been stuck in Suva, Fiji, for over a week and is not expected to reach Tonga for another week. Until the cable is restored, the government has granted a provisional temporary permit to Starlink to operate for six months.
However, Ahio noted that Starlink is not yet available to new customers, and very few people, other than businesses, can afford the service.
Tonga cable repairs face delays
Starlink‘s website sales have not kicked off yet.
It is still working on activating the Tongan currency so people here can buy the service,” Ahio explained. An earthquake likely caused the current outage, marking the third significant subsea cable disruption the TDCE has suffered since 2019. That year, a ship’s anchor allegedly caused $1.2 million in damage to both the international and domestic cables near Nuku’alofa, leading to an internet blackout from January 20 to February 6.
A more severe outage occurred in January 2022 due to volcanic activity, causing a cable break that was only fixed in July 2023. Residents of Tonga’s outlying islands will have to wait until at least mid-August for internet connectivity to return to normal. In the meantime, they are experiencing very slow internet, which is backhauled by satellite connectivity activated by Tonga Communication Corporation (TCC) and Digicel Tonga.
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