22 Jan 2019

Tonga turns to satellite to re-connect

10:03 pm on 22 January 2019

Tonga's internet and mobile connection to the outside world is expected to be up and running again tonight.

Officials say they're still finalising the details as to how the country's subsea cable broke down on Sunday evening.

The Tonga Cable outage took out all the kingdom's domestic and international cell phone and internet coverage.

Tonga Cable Director Paula Piukala said they would tap into a smaller local service provider, Ezinet, who has satellite connectivity to restore full connection around the country.

Mr Piukala said it was a temporary solution until the Tonga Cable issues were resolved.

"That service will go live so the main ISP, service provider, can tap into the redundancy through Ezinet," he explained.

"They are the saving grace for these issues. We owe them. Their existence with a satellite communication really saved and cut the losses."

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