[Starlink] Tonga's international cable is back up
Ulrich Speidel
ulrich at cs.auckland.ac.nz
Fri Feb 25 20:11:56 EST 2022
Someone from FINTEL mentioned this during my seminar on Thursday,
apparently they started operations on the 16th and launched officially
on the 23rd.
That said, if you try to order Starlink for an address in, say, Neiafu
on Vava'u, which has 15k people on it and lost its domestic cable
connection, you'll be able to pay a US$99 deposit to reserve Starlink
for ... 2023.
The 50 or so Dishys they have delivered will remain under government
control and will probably go all over the place, as there are many
smaller island that have no connectivity at all right now. So I doubt
that we'll see end user reviews any time soon. I may be able to get some
informal feedback in a while.
One of the local satellite(-agnostic) ISPs did a review of Starlink
service in Auckland, at 37 degrees south:
https://getgravity.nz/blog/starlink-review-new-zealand-test-results-2022/
Now that's with a gateway in cycling distance (Clevedon) and two more
within less than 200 km, in a region that is probably not too overloaded
with users right. They still see frequent outages, and I guess it would
be worse in Tonga for the time being.
But I guess if it's the alternative to zero connectivity, it's worth
having, so kudos to them for pushing the envelope here.
On 26/02/2022 7:19 am, Nathan Owens wrote:
> https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/1497258566347943936
> <https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/1497258566347943936>
>
> On Fri, Feb 25, 2022 at 9:15 AM Nathan Owens <nathan at nathan.io> wrote:
>
> Per the Starlink 4-11 Launch webcast just minutes ago, they have
> launched service in Tonga.
>
> On Fri, Feb 25, 2022 at 9:12 AM Ulrich Speidel
> <u.speidel at auckland.ac.nz> wrote:
>
> Matangitonga said that Starlink wanted to launch this week.
> But I haven't heard confirmation from anyone that they
> actually have.
>
> I guess a dishy without a link might still make a nice coffee
> table if nothing else & might even keep your coffee at
> temperature for a bit longer, but seriously: I suppose they
> must think in earnest that they'll be able to deliver at least
> some service some percentage of the time, which is more than
> some of the smaller places have right now. And I don't really
> want to dump on them - at least they tried, as did with
> varying levels of success almost everybody else in the
> satellite business, and that's really all you can ask for.
>
> Tongans are also an incredibly patient and grateful people,
> whatever they have they make do with. I first had plenty of
> opportunity to witness this when we went there on our
> honeymoon in 2003. One of the island villages we stayed on in
> the Ha'apai group had piped water to the beachfront properties
> installed yonks ago, before they got electricity. Then the
> Australians brought electricity around 2002 & used a trench
> digger to put the cable in along the main drag, unaware that
> there were water pipes in the ground. The locals were too
> grateful for the electricity to complain that they now needed
> to walk to the cistern to get their water, and the problem
> remained unsolved a year later - we had to wash from big
> barrels and a bit of rainwater off the roof. As we left
> Ha'apai after a hair-raising boat passage in a 4 m boat in 6 m
> swells, we didn't have a flight booked, so went to the Ha'apai
> office of the long since defunct Royal Tongan Airlines to book
> ourselves on the next flight out. The two ladies in the office
> gave us their most welcoming smiles, along with the regret
> that they couldn't book us a ticket as the computer were down.
> We asked how long such outages typically lasted and were told
> that they didn't know but this one had lasted three months
> already. We then made our way to the airport with the help of
> a few bored Mormon missionaries. We were the only people there
> until the station manager turned up. He reckoned there would
> be seats and told us that he was the local baker as well and
> had been trying out artisan bread recipes, which the locals
> liked, but was finding it difficult to get the right flour.
> Nice chat! Eventually the plane arrived early without any
> passengers. Pilots and station manager spent ten seconds
> bitching about their employer (rightfully so, a long story I
> shan't repeat - but neither the employees' nor the
> management's fault, though), then the pilots decided that they
> wanted lunch in Vava'u and off we took 15 minutes ahead of
> schedule...
>
> On 22/02/2022 8:45 pm, Daniel AJ Sokolov @mobile wrote:
>> So the Starlink terminals have arrived on Tongatapu, but are
>> not operational yet?
>>
>> Cheers
>> Daniel
>>
>>
>> On February 22, 2022 7:31:25 a.m. UTC, Ulrich Speidel
>> <ulrich at cs.auckland.ac.nz> <mailto:ulrich at cs.auckland.ac.nz>
>> wrote:
>> >FWIW... this restores connectivity to ~80% of Tonga's
>> population.
>> >
>> >The domestic cable may be up to 9 months off, depending on
>> cable lead
>> >time, apparently it's got to come from France. In the
>> interim, there's
>> >work on more satellite connectivity, I heard from a
>> satellite ISP in NZ
>> >today that they were about to ship a few units for Eutelsat
>> links up. I
>> >haven't heard any further about operational readiness of
>> Starlink, but
>> >have heard from a well-connected source that the dishys
>> delivered to
>> >Tonga will remain in Tongan government service in
>> underconnected places
>> >if and when service becomes available.
>> >
>> >I would expect them to hang onto a couple of units for
>> Tongatapu just in
>> >case there'll be more turbidity currents messing with the
>> cable, heaven
>> >forbid.
>> >
>> >--
>> >****************************************************************
>> >Dr. Ulrich Speidel
>> >
>> >School of Computer Science
>> >
>> >Room 303S.594 (City Campus)
>> >
>> >The University of Auckland
>> >u.speidel at auckland.ac.nz
>> >http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~ulrich/
>> <http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~ulrich>
>> >****************************************************************
>> >
>> >
>> >
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>
> --
> ****************************************************************
> Dr. Ulrich Speidel
>
> School of Computer Science
>
> Room 303S.594 (City Campus)
>
> The University of Auckland
> u.speidel at auckland.ac.nz
> http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~ulrich/ <http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~ulrich/>
> ****************************************************************
>
>
>
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--
****************************************************************
Dr. Ulrich Speidel
School of Computer Science
Room 303S.594 (City Campus)
The University of Auckland
u.speidel at auckland.ac.nz
http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~ulrich/
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