Transcript
TIMOTE KATOANGA: Not at this stage. What I have heard is they already located the cable and the fault, and the fault area and they are trying, at this stage to repair the damage to the cable. With regard to what happened, causing the break, or the cut, I don't have any information at this stage.
DON WISEMAN: And there are two cables of course. They will be fixing the cable from Fiji first, I presume?
TK: Yes they will fix they international cable and when it's completed they move on to the domestic cable.
DW: So we don't know what's caused this yet then but I suppose there are more ideas about what might have caused it?
TK: I think several ideas - talking about maybe a ship cut the cable - that's a high possibility at this stage.
DW: Yes but the fact that there are two cables and they are some distance apart aren't they - it would seem a bit odd, that it would get both of them.
TK: And I think that is the reason why we have to wait for the full report because, again, they will have to explain what is the possible cause of the break and how it happened and it caused the two cables to be cut at different places. We need to wait for the full report. Again it is a very remote possibility for the two cables to be cut at the same time, but it happened.
DW: Now the Tonga Government said to me the other day that there are already discussions underway about some sort of a back up to ensure that this doesn't happen again. So what sort of things are you looking at?
TK: I think first the backup we have at the moment, the satellite capacity. Again [with] those kinds of back up we will not be able to restore the service 100 percent. If it happens like this in the future it will only be a percentage of the service that will be restored. Another of the options will be another cable, second cable from Tonga, and that will provide a much higher capacity for any future incident like this.
DW: In terms of these repairs that are being done now will additional capacity come on incrementally or will it not come on until the whole thing is done?
TK: It will not come on until the whole thing is done. They need to test the cable, make sure everything works and also that they will be able to get it to handle the full capacity, and when that is done they will release the cable for commercial traffic.
DW; And when do you think that might be?
TK: Hopefully will be done by this weekend or before the weekend.
