<div dir="ltr"><a href="https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/1497258566347943936">https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/1497258566347943936</a></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Fri, Feb 25, 2022 at 9:15 AM Nathan Owens <<a href="mailto:nathan@nathan.io">nathan@nathan.io</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr">Per the Starlink 4-11 Launch webcast just minutes ago, they have launched service in Tonga. <br></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Fri, Feb 25, 2022 at 9:12 AM Ulrich Speidel <<a href="mailto:u.speidel@auckland.ac.nz" target="_blank">u.speidel@auckland.ac.nz</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
<div>
<p>Matangitonga said that Starlink wanted to launch this week. But I
haven't heard confirmation from anyone that they actually have.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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... <br>
</p>
<div>On 22/02/2022 8:45 pm, Daniel AJ
Sokolov @mobile wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite">
So the Starlink terminals have arrived on Tongatapu, but are not
operational yet?<br>
<br>
Cheers<br>
Daniel<br>
<br>
<br>
On February 22, 2022 7:31:25 a.m. UTC, Ulrich Speidel
<a href="mailto:ulrich@cs.auckland.ac.nz" target="_blank"><ulrich@cs.auckland.ac.nz></a> wrote:<br>
>FWIW... this restores connectivity to ~80% of Tonga's
population.<br>
><br>
>The domestic cable may be up to 9 months off, depending on
cable lead <br>
>time, apparently it's got to come from France. In the interim,
there's <br>
>work on more satellite connectivity, I heard from a satellite
ISP in NZ <br>
>today that they were about to ship a few units for Eutelsat
links up. I <br>
>haven't heard any further about operational readiness of
Starlink, but <br>
>have heard from a well-connected source that the dishys
delivered to <br>
>Tonga will remain in Tongan government service in
underconnected places <br>
>if and when service becomes available.<br>
><br>
>I would expect them to hang onto a couple of units for
Tongatapu just in <br>
>case there'll be more turbidity currents messing with the
cable, heaven <br>
>forbid.<br>
><br>
>-- <br>
>****************************************************************<br>
>Dr. Ulrich Speidel<br>
><br>
>School of Computer Science<br>
><br>
>Room 303S.594 (City Campus)<br>
><br>
>The University of Auckland<br>
><a href="mailto:u.speidel@auckland.ac.nz" target="_blank">u.speidel@auckland.ac.nz</a><br>
><a href="http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~ulrich" target="_blank">http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~ulrich/</a><br>
>****************************************************************<br>
><br>
><br>
><br>
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</blockquote>
<pre cols="72">--
****************************************************************
Dr. Ulrich Speidel
School of Computer Science
Room 303S.594 (City Campus)
The University of Auckland
<a href="mailto:u.speidel@auckland.ac.nz" target="_blank">u.speidel@auckland.ac.nz</a>
<a href="http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~ulrich/" target="_blank">http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~ulrich/</a>
****************************************************************
</pre>
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