<!DOCTYPE html><html><head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
</head>
<body>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 2/09/2024 10:17 am, Dave Taht wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite" cite="mid:CAA93jw4drgO3-daKjL9HL-y_2Gjtc3d79Jwb0odZ9K9GbQtveg@mail.gmail.com">
<div dir="ltr">Thank you for the update!
<div><br>
</div>
<div>It sounds like the rightest option is to deploy more than
one cable on more than one path, and my question is</div>
<div>who pays for that? </div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<p>Indeed, good question. That came up at the Pacific Internet
Governance Forum today, too. <br>
</p>
<p>Basically, Tonga has been planning for some time for a spur off
the Hawaiki cable to land in Vava'u (the northern population
centre island), but that's still some time off. <br>
</p>
<p>The problem around Tonga is really unfriendly seafloor whichever
way you look. Approaches from the West need to come through the
chain of volcanoes, one of which is Hunga Tonga Hunga Ha'apai, the
volcano that exploded the other year. It has a few siblings
further north that are of similar calibre. To the East and North
to Samoa you have the Tonga trench, meaning you'd need to lay down
a steep slope - landslide territory known for semi-regular M8
quakes. Approaching from the South from NZ means going along the
Kermadec ridge, where there are multiple active volcanoes above
and below water.</p>
<p>My current hope is that they'll find a way of getting the cable
up from that trench onto the Ha'apai plateau. It mightn't be that
safe from anchors there, but that might be a matter of policing
and having mandatory AIS in the area.<br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite" cite="mid:CAA93jw4drgO3-daKjL9HL-y_2Gjtc3d79Jwb0odZ9K9GbQtveg@mail.gmail.com">
<div dir="ltr">
<div>Starlink cannot possibly provide enough bandwidth long
term.</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<p>Indeed. But their Ka-band community gateways are a feasible
gap-filler until a proper cable can be laid. I gather that this is
what's been offered to the cable company in Kiribati that's
waiting for its cable.<br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite" cite="mid:CAA93jw4drgO3-daKjL9HL-y_2Gjtc3d79Jwb0odZ9K9GbQtveg@mail.gmail.com">
<div dir="ltr">
<div> </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Also have you been measuring the bloat and the ISLs any in
tonga?</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
Starlink's only just been licensed in Tonga (to protect the local
ISPs that co-fund the cable projects) so we haven't looked at ISLs
or bloat there yet. Bloat via cable connections - not something
we've looked into from our end but probably worth doing. I might
chew Terry Sweetser's ear about having you give a talk on this
before soon at a Pacific IGF or appropriate APNIC meeting session,
and hook you up with a few of the folk out there. Definitely
something to build into the community training here. I've been able
to connect with a lot of old chums and new acquaintances here, from
Tonga and Samoa to Vanuatu to Tuvalu to Cook Islands. There's even a
few Tokelauans and Marshall Islanders here, not to forget the
i-Kiribati having turned up in force. <br>
<blockquote type="cite" cite="mid:CAA93jw4drgO3-daKjL9HL-y_2Gjtc3d79Jwb0odZ9K9GbQtveg@mail.gmail.com">
<div dir="ltr">
<div><br>
</div>
</div>
<br>
<div class="gmail_quote">
<div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Sat, Aug 31, 2024 at
12:35 AM Ulrich Speidel via Starlink <<a href="mailto:starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net" moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext">starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net</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">Howdy
all,<br>
<br>
There were quite a few folk on this list a couple of years
back who were <br>
interested in what was happening to Internet in Tonga after
the big <br>
volcanic eruption there. I'm not sure where I left off.<br>
<br>
To re-cap, Tonga lost about 90 km of its international
connection to <br>
Fiji at the time (a few dozen km of that could be recovered),
and an <br>
amount of cable of similar magnitude on the Tonga Domestic
Cable <br>
Extension (TDCE) that ran a fibre pair each to both Vava'u and
Ha'apai <br>
from the main island Tongatapu. The TDCE is one of the longer
<br>
unrepeatered stretches of submarine cable in the world and
runs in a <br>
submarine trench just downhill from the Hunga Tonga Hunga
Ha'apai <br>
volcano and its siblings in the chain. Simulations at the
timed showed <br>
that this trench likely received a large amount of the
material that was <br>
ejected from the volcano, likely several cubic kilometres, and
acted as <br>
a kind of gutter that guided the material away from the
volcano in <br>
turbidity flows stretching over hundreds of km. At the time,
the cable <br>
ship sent to repair was unable to repair the TDCE for lack of
spare <br>
cable - nothing was recoverable from the seafloor, and there
was not <br>
enough spare cable in the South Pacific to bridge the gap.<br>
<br>
Spare cable was ordered from France and was installed middle
of 2023, <br>
restoring the TDCE to service.<br>
<br>
Then, on 29 June 2024, an earthquake near the volcanoes caused
yet more <br>
debris to descend on the cable, obliterating 13.7 km of it and
cutting <br>
service to both Vava'u and Ha'apai again. Cable ship MV
Lodbrog was <br>
brought in from Singapore with 60 km of spares but got delayed
in Fiji <br>
due to mechanical issues. The cable was repaired on 16 August
2024, in <br>
the same location. The operators were well aware of the risk,
however <br>
re-routing the cable would have required it to be lengthened,
with the <br>
need to insert repeaters, upgrade terminal equipment, and
conduct a new <br>
marine survey, which would have meant further delays.<br>
<br>
On 26 August 2024, 11:29 am, a M6.9 quake struck in the area
at a depth <br>
of about 106 km. Our Science building in Auckland has a
"citizen <br>
science" seismograph with a big display in its foyer, and my
student and <br>
I noticed the very prominent event as we returned from lunch.
Little did <br>
we know that this wasn't as close to home as we'd thought, but
would <br>
touch us in other ways that week. You've guessed it: The cable
has been <br>
cut again, the cable ship's been recalled, and nobody quite
knows what <br>
they'll find this time.<br>
<br>
<a href="https://matangitonga.to/2024/08/27/domestic-submarine-cable-out-again-after-haapai-earthquake-yesterday" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext">https://matangitonga.to/2024/08/27/domestic-submarine-cable-out-again-after-haapai-earthquake-yesterday</a><br>
<br>
The latest plan I know of was to repair in the same location
again, <br>
using armored spares - but they know that this may not prevent
further <br>
damage. Geological advice is that any decent quake in the area
will <br>
cause further submarine landslides in the coming years until
the area <br>
has settled.<br>
<br>
Meanwhile, Starlink has been licensed to operate commercially
in Tonga. <br>
For many Pacific Island countries, this is a double-edged
sword: On the <br>
one hand, this provides short-term relief, on the other hand,
it <br>
deprives local ISPs of customers and therefore impacts on
aspirations to <br>
achieve cable connectivity which could provide more bandwidth
in the <br>
medium term.<br>
<br>
Some island nations have not yet licensed Starlink, but allow
Starlink <br>
units on regional roaming plans to operate there. In some
cases, there <br>
are now hundreds of such units operating in individual cells.
This <br>
appears to be causing Starlink some headaches in terms of
capacity - <br>
we've seen them being creative when it comes to user density
management <br>
before. What happens if Starlink are going to be licensed
there but <br>
can't offer fixed service on the ground because of the large
number of <br>
roaming subscribers already there? I understand that some of
these <br>
"roaming" users have been contacted by Starlink with a request
to either <br>
take these units back to their home location country where
they are <br>
registered (which isn't likely to happen given the cost
involved) or <br>
register them in the country they're currently in (not
possible in some <br>
cases for lack of local fixed service offered).<br>
<br>
Ulrich<br>
<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" moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext">u.speidel@auckland.ac.nz</a><br>
<a href="http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~ulrich/" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext">http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~ulrich/</a><br>
****************************************************************<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
_______________________________________________<br>
Starlink mailing list<br>
<a href="mailto:Starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net" target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext">Starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net</a><br>
<a href="https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/starlink" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext">https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/starlink</a><br>
</blockquote>
</div>
<br clear="all">
<div><br>
</div>
<span class="gmail_signature_prefix">-- </span><br>
<div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature">
<div dir="ltr">
<div>Artists/Musician Campout Aug 9-11</div>
<div><a href="https://www.eventbrite.com/e/healing-arts-event-tickets-928910826287" target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext">https://www.eventbrite.com/e/healing-arts-event-tickets-928910826287</a><br>
</div>
<div>Dave Täht CSO, LibreQos<br>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
****************************************************************
Dr. Ulrich Speidel
School of Computer Science
Room 303S.594 (City Campus)
The University of Auckland
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:u.speidel@auckland.ac.nz">u.speidel@auckland.ac.nz</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~ulrich/">http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~ulrich/</a>
****************************************************************
</pre>
</body>
</html>