Pacific nation Tonga inks deal for high speed broadband

The project aims to improve e-governance in the Kingdom of Tonga.

In an effort to provide higher-speed connectivity, the Kingdom of Tonga has signed a 15-year deal with Kacific Broadband Satellite Group.

Kacific CEO Christian Patouraux said the partnership shows that the company is committed to building infrastructure in rural areas and help urban areas with back-up connectivity options in case of fibre malfunction or natural disaster. In regard to the fibre cable outage which was experienced in the month of January for over 12 days, Patouraux said the satellite bandwidth can be redistributed and shared with Tonga's main centres. " Until now, rural areas were depending on urban centres to distribute their bandwidth to them. With Kacific's solution for Tonga, urban centres need rural and remote areas in reciprocal cooperation to complete the urban infrastructure build-up."

The Minister for Commerce, Consumer, Trade, Innovation and Labor Dr Tevita Tui' Uata said the satellite connectivity would enable residents to access e-governance applications. He clarified that the satellite will mainly be used for government infrastructure including hospitals, schools, police stations, post offices as well as health clinics and dispensaries. " The Kacific system is uniquely designed for the rural and remote areas of our Pacific nations and beyond." The minister said the system uniquely provides backup to avoid deep digital disruption.