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By Praveen Menon and Tom Westbrook
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WELLINGTON\/SYDNEY: The South Pacific archipelago<\/a> of Tonga<\/a> could spend days, or even weeks, cut off from the rest of world because of difficulties in repairing its sole undersea communications cable, which an operator said was ruptured during a massive volcanic eruption.
The challenge underlines the vulnerability of undersea fibre-optic cables<\/a>, which have become the backbone of global communications, thanks to a capacity to carry data that is about 200 times that of satellites.
Saturday's explosion of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai volcano<\/a> sent tsunami waves across the Pacific Ocean so that connectivity<\/a> was lost on the line, operated by Tonga Cable Ltd<\/a>, in waters about 37 kilometres (23 miles) offshore.
But the repair of Tonga's critical 827-km (514-mile) fibre-optic link to Fiji depends on the arrival of a specialised ship now days away in Port Moresby, the capital of Papua New Guinea.
\"Typically, all things going well, it would take around two weeks,\" said Craige Sloots, marketing and sales director at Southern Cross Cable Network, which connects to the Tonga cable at Fiji.
That covers the eight or nine days the Reliance, the specialist cable repair ship in Port Moresby, will take to reach the affected area, while the crew also needs safety clearance for the repairs, he added.
\"Its ability to repair would also be dependent, as you would expect, on any volcanic activity,\" Sloots, who is based in Sydney, told Reuters.
\"Fault-finding by Fintel and Tonga Cable Ltd on Sunday afternoon seems to confirm a likely cable break,\" added Sloots, referring to Fiji's telecoms provider.
The Reliance, owned by U.S. firm SubCom, a builder of underwater cable networks that is the repair contractor for more than 50,000 km (31,070 miles) of cable in the South Pacific, has completed five-yearly maintenance in Singapore.
It is in Port Moresby en route to its base in New Caledonia.
SubCom, owned by U.S. private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management, said it was working with Tonga Cable Ltd to mobilise the Reliance for the cable repairs, while it evaluated crew and ship safety.
Fixing a break in a fibre-optic cable on land is easy for an experienced technician, but repairing a cut in one on a seabed is far more complicated.
Cable operators must first locate the fault by seeing how far a pulse of light travels down the cable before it bounces back at the break.
Then a repair ship heads to the site of the break, where it sends down a submersible or deep water hook to grab the cable and pull it up to make the repair.
GLOBAL SUBSEA NETWORK<\/strong>
More than 99% of global international data traffic is still carried on a network of about 280 submarine cables stretching more than a million kilometres (621,000 miles).
In 2019, Tonga spent more than a week cut adrift from the web, when the undersea cable<\/a> was damaged, reportedly by a ship's anchor. After that outage, it signed a 15-year deal for satellite connectivity.
But prohibitive costs limit the use of satellites across the archipelago for most people apart from government, officials and some businesses.
The use of satellite phones has also been affected by the ash still blanketing the country after the eruption.
Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Pacific spokeswoman Victoria Kanevsky said Tonga country head David Dudley could only dial out on his satellite phone, and get signals only when he was down at the waterfront in the capital, Nuku'alofa.
Digicel, an international mobile network provider, said it had set up an interim system on the main island of Tongatapu using the University of the South Pacific's satellite dish, which could allow limited 2G coverage.
Worried relatives overseas still face an agonising wait for news.
\"We just wait and pray and hope that communications come back soon because we don't know anything,\" said Pauline Lavulo, whose husband Aqulia is a pastor to the Tongan community in Sydney.
\"Every Tongan ... wherever we are in the globe, we still have family back home.\"
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Praveen梅农和汤姆韦斯特布鲁克
惠灵顿/悉尼:南太平洋群岛的汤加可以花几天,甚至几个星期,切断了与世界的其余部分由于修复其唯一的困难海底通信电缆、操作员说破裂在大规模的火山爆发。
突显了海底的脆弱性的挑战光纤电缆已成为全球通信的支柱,由于携带能力约200倍的卫星的数据。
周六的爆炸Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha 'apai火山横跨太平洋海啸这样发送连接失去了在直线上,由汤加电缆有限公司约37公里的水域(23英里)海外。
但汤加修复的关键827公里(514英里)的光纤链接到斐济取决于专业船的到来现在天在莫尔兹比港,巴布新几内亚的首都。
“通常,一切顺利,需要两个星期左右,“说Craige Sloots,市场与销售总监在南十字星座有线电视网络,连接在斐济汤加电缆。
覆盖八或九天的依赖,莫尔兹比港的专业电缆修理船将到达受灾地区,而船员们也需要维修的安全间隙,他补充说。
“修复的能力也会依赖,如你所愿,火山活动,“Sloots,在悉尼,告诉路透社。
“吹毛求疵Fintel和汤加电缆有限公司周日下午似乎证实可能电缆断裂,“添加Sloots,指的是斐济的电信提供商。
依赖,由美国公司SubCom水下电缆网络的建造者是修理承包商超过50000公里(31070英里)的电缆在南太平洋,在新加坡已经完成五年一度的维护。
在莫尔兹比港的途中在新喀里多尼亚的基地。
SubCom,旗下的美国私募股权投资公司Cerberus资本管理公司表示,它正与汤加电缆有限公司动员的依赖电缆维修,虽然船员和船舶安全评估。
固定在陆地上的光纤电缆是容易的对于一个经验丰富的技术人员,但修复削减一个海底复杂得多。
有线电视运营商必须首先看到的故障定位,多远的脉冲光下电缆之前,反弹在休息。
然后修理船正面的打破,它发送一个潜水或深水钩的电缆和把它修复。
全球海底网络
超过99%的全球国际数据流量仍进行网络约280海底电缆长度超过一百万公里(621000英里)。
2019年,汤加花了一个多星期脱离了网络,当海底电缆被损坏,据说是船锚。停机后,签署了15年协议的卫星连接。
但高昂的成本限制使用的卫星群岛对大多数人来说,除了政府官员和一些企业。
使用卫星电话也一直受到火山灰喷发后仍然覆盖全国。
澳大利亚和新西兰银行集团发言人维多利亚Kanevsky说太平洋汤加国家主管大卫·达德利只能拨打卫星电话,和得到信号只有当他在海滨在首都努库阿诺。
国际移动网络提供者,Digicel表示,它已经设立了一个临时系统磅礴的主岛气流使用南太平洋大学的卫星天线,这可能允许有限的2 g覆盖。
担心海外亲属仍然面临着一个痛苦的等待消息。乐动扑克
“我们只是等待和祈祷,希望很快就通信回来,因为我们什么都不知道,”波林Lavulo说,她的丈夫Aqulia汤加社区在悉尼一个牧师。
“每个汤加……无论我们在世界各地,我们还有家庭回家。”
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