Digicel Pacific and SES have strengthened their partnership to enhance the resilience of communications networks in Tonga, particularly in response to natural disasters. The expanded agreement allows Digicel Pacific to leverage SES's satellite services to rapidly restore critical communication links in the event of a disaster.
This collaboration proved crucial after the earthquake on August 26th, which disrupted the Tonga Domestic Cable Extension (TDCE), the nation's sole domestic subsea cable connection. With the aid of SES's satellite service, Digicel Pacific was able to reestablish inter-island voice, SMS, and data services on the islands of Vava'u within just six hours.
"The expanded agreement with SES and the use of its O3b mPOWER network will give the nation of Tonga greater peace of mind that in the event of a significant disaster, we will have the ability to access a large amount of low-latency, high-throughput connectivity," said Shally Jannif, Digicel Pacific Regional HUB Markets CEO.
"Being able to implement disaster recovery networks quickly after the recent earthquake enabled people to get back online and assure their loved ones of their safety. At the same time, it also enabled local businesses to get their operations back up quickly, minimizing the potential disruption to their businesses."
John Turnbull, Director, Sales, Enterprise and Cloud, Pacific at SES, added, "When natural disasters occur, it is of utmost importance to restore communications in a matter of hours. This extended collaboration using SES's service will enable Digicel Pacific to provide enhanced resilience with large bandwidth and low-latency connectivity flexibly and quickly."
