[Starlink] An update on Tonga

[Dave Taht]

Thank you for the update!

It sounds like the rightest option is to deploy more than one cable on more
than one path, and my question is
who pays for that? Starlink cannot possibly provide enough bandwidth long
term.

Also have you been measuring the bloat and the ISLs any in tonga?


On Sat, Aug 31, 2024 at 12:35 AM Ulrich Speidel via Starlink <
starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:

> Howdy all,
>
> There were quite a few folk on this list a couple of years back who were
> interested in what was happening to Internet in Tonga after the big
> volcanic eruption there. I'm not sure where I left off.
>
> To re-cap, Tonga lost about 90 km of its international connection to
> Fiji at the time (a few dozen km of that could be recovered), and an
> amount of cable of similar magnitude on the Tonga Domestic Cable
> Extension (TDCE) that ran a fibre pair each to both Vava'u and Ha'apai
> from the main island Tongatapu. The TDCE is one of the longer
> unrepeatered stretches of submarine cable in the world and runs in a
> submarine trench just downhill from the Hunga Tonga Hunga Ha'apai
> volcano and its siblings in the chain. Simulations at the timed showed
> that this trench likely received a large amount of the material that was
> ejected from the volcano, likely several cubic kilometres, and acted as
> a kind of gutter that guided the material away from the volcano in
> turbidity flows stretching over hundreds of km. At the time, the cable
> ship sent to repair was unable to repair the TDCE for lack of spare
> cable - nothing was recoverable from the seafloor, and there was not
> enough spare cable in the South Pacific to bridge the gap.
>
> Spare cable was ordered from France and was installed middle of 2023,
> restoring the TDCE to service.
>
> Then, on 29 June 2024, an earthquake near the volcanoes caused yet more
> debris to descend on the cable, obliterating 13.7 km of it and cutting
> service to both Vava'u and Ha'apai again. Cable ship MV Lodbrog was
> brought in from Singapore with 60 km of spares but got delayed in Fiji
> due to mechanical issues. The cable was repaired on 16 August 2024, in
> the same location. The operators were well aware of the risk, however
> re-routing the cable would have required it to be lengthened, with the
> need to insert repeaters, upgrade terminal equipment, and conduct a new
> marine survey, which would have meant further delays.
>
> On 26 August 2024, 11:29 am, a M6.9 quake struck in the area at a depth
> of about 106 km. Our Science building in Auckland has a "citizen
> science" seismograph with a big display in its foyer, and my student and
> I noticed the very prominent event as we returned from lunch. Little did
> we know that this wasn't as close to home as we'd thought, but would
> touch us in other ways that week. You've guessed it: The cable has been
> cut again, the cable ship's been recalled, and nobody quite knows what
> they'll find this time.
>
>
> https://matangitonga.to/2024/08/27/domestic-submarine-cable-out-again-after-haapai-earthquake-yesterday
>
> The latest plan I know of was to repair in the same location again,
> using armored spares - but they know that this may not prevent further
> damage. Geological advice is that any decent quake in the area will
> cause further submarine landslides in the coming years until the area
> has settled.
>
> Meanwhile, Starlink has been licensed to operate commercially in Tonga.
> For many Pacific Island countries, this is a double-edged sword: On the
> one hand, this provides short-term relief, on the other hand, it
> deprives local ISPs of customers and therefore impacts on aspirations to
> achieve cable connectivity which could provide more bandwidth in the
> medium term.
>
> Some island nations have not yet licensed Starlink, but allow Starlink
> units on regional roaming plans to operate there. In some cases, there
> are now hundreds of such units operating in individual cells. This
> appears to be causing Starlink some headaches in terms of capacity -
> we've seen them being creative when it comes to user density management
> before. What happens if Starlink are going to be licensed there but
> can't offer fixed service on the ground because of the large number of
> roaming subscribers already there? I understand that some of these
> "roaming" users have been contacted by Starlink with a request to either
> take these units back to their home location country where they are
> registered (which isn't likely to happen given the cost involved) or
> register them in the country they're currently in (not possible in some
> cases for lack of local fixed service offered).
>
> Ulrich
>
>
> --
> ****************************************************************
> 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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-- 
Artists/Musician Campout Aug 9-11
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Dave Täht CSO, LibreQos
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