Subsea cable connectivity to the Kingdom of Tonga was lost following the eruption of the Hunga-Tonga-Hunga-Ha’apai volcano on Saturday.
Digicel reported that all communication to the outside world in Tonga is affected due to damage on the Tonga Cable Limited submarine cable, which runs 827 kilometers and connects the Tongan capital of Nuku’alofa to Southern Cross’ trans-Pacific cable in Suva, Fiji.
https://www.digicelgroup.com/to/en/news/2022/jan/16th/network-restoration-volcanic-eruption.html
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SubCom completes repair of Tonga Cable System
The cable ship SubCom Reliance successfully completed the repair of two Tongan submarine cables within eight days of arrival on repair ground. The Tonga Cable and the Tonga Domestic Cable were damaged on January 20, 2019. The ship was on standby in the South Pacific at a port in Apia, Samoa.
The Tonga Cable System is an international cable in the Pacific Ocean that spans 827 kilometers with landing points in Nuku’alofa, Tonga and Suva, Fiji. The Tonga Domestic Cable Extension is a 406-kilometer cable with three landing points in Tonga: Neiafu, Nukualofa and Pangai.
SubCom maintains these two cables in addition to 31 other systems as part of the South Pacific Marine Maintenance Agreement (SPMMA), which was signed in 2017 and covers the area from Singapore in the west to Tahiti in the east and from the southernmost point of New Zealand to Hawaii. This covers over 69,000 km of cable consisting of 33 data and power cable systems in the Pacific Ocean.
