SubCom completes repair of Tonga Cable

SubCom completes repair of Tonga Cable

AdobeStock_201894464.jpeg

SubCom has confirmed that its cable ship SubCom Reliance has completed the repair of two Tongan subsea cables.

The two systems, the Tonga Cable and the Tonga Domestic Cable, were damaged in January 2019. As soon as the break was reported, SubCom Reliance was deployed and completed repairs to both cables within eight days of arrival.

The repair work was carried out under South Pacific Marine Maintenance Agreement (SPMMA), under which SubCom maintains over 69,000km of cable consisting of 33 data and power cable systems in the Pacific Ocean.

“We salute SubCom and the entire SubCom Reliance team for a job well done,” said Edwin Liava’a, CEO of Tonga Cable Ltd.

The Tonga Cable is an 827km system, located in the Pacific Ocean with landing points in Nuku’alofa, Tonga and Suva, Fiji. While the Tonga Domestic Cable Extension is a 406km cable with three landing points in Tonga: Neiafu, Nukualofa and Pangai.

SubCom maintains these two systems in addition to 31 others as part of SPMMA, which was signed back in 2017. Under the scope of the agreement, other regions covered by it includes the South Pacific region from Singapore in the west to Tahiti in the east and from the southernmost point of New Zealand to Hawaii.

Only last year, SubCom (previously TE SubCom) was named as the builder of Google’s Curie subsea cable system, which will connect the US to Chile and includes a branching unit for future connectivity to Panama.

SubCom will design, deploy and launch the submarine cable system for Google between North and South America and the Curie submarine cable will link Los Angeles, California, and Valparaiso, Chile, via a high capacity intercontinental cable.

Gift this article