Elon Musk donates 50 satellite terminals to Tonga
Tonga says space entrepreneur and Tesla founder Elon Musk has donated 50 satellite terminals to help the volcano-ravaged Pacific island reconnect with the world.
Tonga’s telecommunications system has been severely constrained since Jan. 15, when a violent volcanic eruption and tsunami severed its undersea fiber optic cable.
Musk’s company, Space X, is providing 50 Very Small Aperture Terminals (VSATs), “and we’re looking at how best to use them,” Prime Minister Siaosi Sovaleni said on Friday.
The tiny South Pacific kingdom was also considering deals to increase internet capacity in Tonga, which has been operating at very low bandwidth since the cable broke.
“That’s something we’re testing right now,” he said.
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Technical staff from SpaceX and the Tonga government worked to install the equipment so it will be operational by next week.
The volcanic eruption, so powerful it was heard as far away as Alaska and triggered a tsunami that flooded the Pacific coast, ripped apart 80 kilometers of Tonga’s undersea telecommunications cable.
Sovaleni said he expects temporary repairs to be completed early next week.
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