[Starlink] Starlink for Tonga?

[Ulrich Speidel]

Layer 2 service requires layer 1 to work, and given the likely link 
budget here with the distances, that is unlikely to be the case for a 
significant percentage of the time :-(

As Daniel says, the debate started with a tweet from NZ opposition MP 
Dr. Shane Reti who decided to give it a shot: 
https://twitter.com/DrShaneRetiMP/status/1484337150011523072

Shane is a GP and he and I have had a bit of an conversation since last 
week, so he understands the issues a bit better now. I'm grateful to him 
for raising the issue though, even if it's not going to help in this 
case, I hope that the Pacific is on Elon's agenda from now on. It's been 
in the media here for a few days and they've even interviewed and quoted 
me (albeit not accurately, as you'll spot quickly):

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/tonga-volcanic-eruption-and-tsunami-national-mp-shane-reti-appeals-to-spacex-ceo-elon-musk-to-help-with-telecommunications/6U5SGVYO3F57E4UWWYHACQHKUI/

Update on the Tonga case:

1) Fijian end of the cable has now been recovered, but as I suspected, a 
significant section of the cable has been wiped out (about 20 km):

https://matangitonga.to/2022/02/08/more-breaks-tonga-cable-suspected-fiji-end

Repair date has now been pushed out to the 20th. Still a tight time 
frame for Elon Musk...

2) I've been discussing the possibility of a submarine landslide off a 
local seamount with the volcanologist that here looks after the area, 
we've both been a bit puzzled at the timing as the outage time of the 
international cable didn't square up with any of the known tsunami or 
eruptive bursts at Hunga. We have now found a 4.7 magnitude quake 10 km 
below said seamount 14 minutes before the international cable outage, 
and are looking at the possibility that this event might have triggered 
such a landslide. Extent of damage area and landslide theory fit like a 
glove. Timing also looks feasible.

3) The Reliance cable ship is still in the vicinity of the site, but 
NORTH of the original cable route, indicating that they may be doing 
some sort of sea floor surveillance. I guess it will now depend on 
whether they have enough cable on board to fix the issue, they'll 
certainly require more than you'd need for simple anchor damage. This 
could necessitate a detour to a service depot with cable stock (e.g., 
Apia (Samoa)).

There might be lower hanging fruit to pick than Starlink, such as SES 
O3b mPower connectivity. Part of the logistical issues include that 
bringing in anything into Tonga at the moment means leaving it on the 
wharf or airside for 3 days, to allow any Covid contamination to die 
down, as Tonga was Covid-free until last week. Even though, some dock 
workers managed to pick up Omicron, probably off the HMAS Adelaide as 
she berthed with a serious outbreak on board. Three cases initially have 
now grown to 13, so it's questionable as to whether they'll get on top 
of it. Tongans have one of the highest rates of obesity, diabetes and 
cardiovascular disease in the world, and the medical system isn't 
particularly robust even during normal times.

They're not the only place in the Pacific to have these sorts of 
problems, so seeing Starlink show any interest at all is a good thing. 
They might want to start with providing service to all of Fiji.

On 8/02/2022 7:25 pm, Daniel AJ Sokolov wrote:
> On 2022-02-07 at 21:46, Inemesit Affia wrote:
> > StarLink may be providing layer 2 connectivity rather than IP. A ground
> > station can act as a receiver in this case in Tonga and provide
> > connectivity directly to the Tonga Telco network. Using ground 
> station type
> > antenna may help with performance.
>
> That would only help the main island of Tonga, but none of the other
> islands - until the domestic cable is fixed. But by the time the
> domestic cable is fixed, the international cable will have been fixed
> for some time already.
>
> In any case, I understand the Starlink-for_Tonga idea started with a
> Twitter exchange with Mr. Musk on the topic of shipping Starlink user
> terminals to Tonga.
>
> Cheers
> Daniel
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-- 
****************************************************************
Dr. Ulrich Speidel

School of Computer Science

Room 303S.594 (City Campus)
Ph: (+64-9)-373-7599 ext. 85282

The University of Auckland
ulrich at cs.auckland.ac.nz  
http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~ulrich/
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