Tonga is reconnected to the internet after two weeks of downtime

The island group of Tonga can be reached again via the internet after two weeks of being offline. The trouble started January 20, when a submarine fiber optic cable broke. The cable was repaired over the weekend.

Last Saturday, a repair vessel repaired the undersea internet cable, Tonga Cable Ltd CEO Edwin Liava’a told Matangi Tonga. After ten hours of testing, the internet connection was restored for ninety percent of the islanders on Sunday. Everyone should have access again on Tuesday.

Tonga has been without internet for almost two weeks. A connection via satellite was set up as an emergency measure, but to save bandwidth, the authorities blocked, for example, posting on social media.

The repair ship found two breaks in the fiber optic cable, another Tonga Cable employee reported to the AP news agency. Several miles away from those breaks, the repair team found two more breaks in another cable connecting the two islands of Tongatapu and Vava’u. In addition, there was a rope attached to that cable.

The cause of the fractures is still unknown. It was initially suspected that the cause was an oil tanker that was nearby on the day of the breach, on January 20. The anchor might have dragged the cable along, was the thought. That theory is now being questioned due to the length of damage, not even excluding sabotage.