There are no individual saviors for Tonga’s Internet infrastructure
The undersea cable connecting Tonga to the global Internet and phone systems was finally restored in late February. The archipelagic nation’s access had been cut off since January 15, when the largely submerged Hunga Tonga–Hunga Ha‘apai volcano unleashed a gargantuan blast and tsunami. Powerful underwater currents, perhaps triggered by the volcano’s partial collapse, severely damaged a 50-mile stretch of the 510-mile-long undersea cable that linked Tonga to the rest of the world.
Like SpaceX’s other interventions, the offer of Starlink services to postdisaster Tonga certainly has an altruistic element to it. But as other coverage has noted, providing Starlink Internet access to Ukraine is not as straightforward as it seems, and doing so will not end the country’s connectivity issues in the middle of a fight for its survival. For different reasons, SpaceX’s offer to Tonga is also not without complications.
Geostationary satellites such as Kacific’s generally offer a slower Internet connection, compared with the low-altitude orbits used by Starlink, however. The latter’s system relies on a ground station called a “gateway,” which is physically wired into the nearest data center or router connected to the global Internet via underground fiber-optic cables.
Satellite access is also slower and often more expensive than cable Internet, notes Nicole Starosielski, an associate professor of media, culture and communication at New York University. “Most places in the world wouldn’t use satellites if they had access to a cable,” she says. Cables may be vulnerable to damage but can usually be repaired relatively quickly. Regardless, “once they fix the cable, it will be as good as new. They do a really good job with repairing cables,” Starosielski says.
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