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Cable Outage Sees Tonga Fall Back To Satellite Internet (zdnet.com)

Posted by msmash on from the how-about-that dept.

The subsea cable providing Tonga, a country in the South Pacific Ocean, with broadband, the Tonga Cable, has been out since 20:30 local time on Sunday night, with the nation now relying on satellite internet instead. From a report: Provided by Kacific, the nation's digital connection to the outside world is now a Ku-band satellite accessed through local ISP Ezinet. Tonga Cable Director, Paula Piveni Piukala, said Kacific is working to boost internet and voice capacity for priority communications. "We appreciate Kacific's assistance, as Tonga currently has no other internet or mobile phone connectivity to the outside world," Piukala said. "Kacific's satellite service ensures that essential services can be maintained as we work to resolve the issue."

17 comments

  1. Fragile network by sjbe · · Score: 2

    For a network that was originally designed to be redundant and robust in case of nuclear war, there are large parts of the internet that have remarkably fragile connections to the rest of the internet. More than a few countries have poor to no redundancy in cabling to the outside world. Cut one cable and entire country goes offline. Mostly an economic issue obviously but still kind of alarming.

    1. Re:Fragile network by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

      "For a network that was originally designed to be redundant and robust in case of nuclear war,"

      Yes, over the ground for the United States.

      "there are large parts of the internet that have remarkably fragile connections "

      Yes, small poor countries in the middle of the ocean. They have Ku satellite connections now.

    2. Re: Fragile network by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Haha I donâ(TM)t think I ever saw a press release on this? No wonder

    3. Re:Fragile network by Fly+Swatter · · Score: 1

      They still have a satellite internet connection, their redundancy plan worked.

    4. Re:Fragile network by stealth_finger · · Score: 1

      They still have a satellite internet connection, their redundancy plan worked.

      But what if the satellite crashes? How would they get their instatweetbooks then? The horror of it.

      --
      Wanna buy a shirt?
      https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
    5. Re:Fragile network by guruevi · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The network wasn't built to be robust or redundant, it was designed to be cheap to install, decentralized and remain usable during war. The redundancy came in the form of physical structures and weapons, the network just had to be able to continue working if an entire segment disappeared.

      --
      Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
    6. Re: Fragile network by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And why is Tonga so interesting? It is just a little island nation with the best surfing in the world and nothing else

  2. A nation of cord-cutters by sinij · · Score: 5, Funny

    Entire nation of Tonga proudly joined the ranks of cord cutters.

    Too soon?

    1. Re:A nation of cord-cutters by bobby · · Score: 1

      Different cord.

  3. OMG! Emergency! by bobbied · · Score: 3, Funny

    They are on their backup data route....

    So, did the necessary routers adjust their route tables? They did. Data is flowing? It is? Well all went as planned then.

    Apart from the bandwidth being limited and the network latency going way up, how's this big news? I mean, they can still get to Slashdot so they aren't missing anything important, right? (sarc off)

    --
    "File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
    1. Re: OMG! Emergency! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If the whole world were trying to connect to Tonga theyd still be flying blind and antsy. Everything goes through the backbone

  4. Re: OMG! Emergency! by Fly+Swatter · · Score: 1

    I doubt their backbone could handle the whole world either. What is your point?

  5. The entire nation of Tonga by Spencer+Drager · · Score: 5, Funny

    From Wikipedia... The entire nation is ~100k people. 70% live on the main island. 32 fiber strands connected Tonga to Fiji. I'll wager the 70k on the mainland had better internet than most in the US before this cable cut.

    1. Re: The entire nation of Tonga by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They dont. They are overwhelmed with the usage on Tongatapu causing a 5Mb PDF upload to gmail take 5 minutes. Seen bettet Internet in small villages in Laos.

  6. Tonga is the best by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Tonga is my favourite travel destination in the world. Due to some governmental and personal choices they screwed up their airline a while back. Additionally they are keeping the land tightly in the monarchy. Both of these facts cause Tonga to feel like it did in the 70's: no development or services for mass tourist, which is the best situation for independent travellers.

    Cherry on top was the cable. In the Haapai island group, on Uoleva island we didnt have running water or electricity but we had miles of beach to ourselves and a hella good 3G from the main island.

    Hopefully its not a full cut that requires a cable ship. That cable made those island groups very inviting to digital nomads and backpackers.

    Christian/Finland

  7. Haha Tonga by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Haha Tonga haha Tonga Tonga haha Tonga Tonga Tonga lolololol

  8. Good!! by quenda · · Score: 1

    Maybe they could ration internet access to two hours per day, with rotating blackouts.
    Then people might even go out and get some exercise.

    Tonga is the most obese nations on earth, making Mississippi look like it is populated by Somalis.

    Life expectancy has fallen to 64 in Tonga. Tongan life expectancy used to be in the mid-70s.[8] Up to 40% of the population is said to have type 2 diabetes.[8] Tongan Royal Tufahau Tupou IV, who died in 2006, holds the Guinness World Record for being the heaviest-ever monarch - 200kg.[8]

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...