In response to the increasing frequency of natural disasters in the Pacific region, Digicel Pacific and SES have announced an enhanced agreement aimed at strengthening Tonga’s communication infrastructure.
This partnership extension promises to improve Tonga’s ability to restore critical communications swiftly in the wake of disasters, providing a vital lifeline for the island’s residents and businesses.
The importance of this collaboration was highlighted following the recent earthquake on August 26th, which damaged, yet again, the Tonga Domestic Cable Extension (TDCE), the nation’s sole domestic subsea cable connection. Despite the damage, Digicel Pacific, leveraging SES’s satellite service, managed to restore essential inter-island voice, SMS, and data services on the islands of Vava’u within six hours.
Shally Jannif, CEO of Digicel Pacific Regional HUB Markets, spoke of the significance of the agreement with SES and the deployment of its advanced O3b mPOWER network.
“This partnership will provide Tonga with greater peace of mind, knowing that in the event of a disaster, we can rapidly deploy disaster recovery networks with high-throughput, low-latency connectivity. The swift restoration of communications after the recent earthquake not only allowed people to reconnect with loved ones but also enabled businesses to resume operations quickly, minimizing disruption,” Jannif said.
John Turnbull, Director of Sales, Enterprise & Cloud for the Pacific at SES, reiterated the importance of rapid communication restoration in disaster scenarios.
“Our extended collaboration with Digicel Pacific ensures enhanced resilience and flexibility, allowing for the quick deployment of large bandwidth, low-latency connectivity when it’s needed most,” he said.
