Tonga Restores Internet After 16 Months Offline, Reconnecting 100,000 Residents
Updated
Updated · PCMag · Jul 8
Tonga Restores Internet After 16 Months Offline, Reconnecting 100,000 Residents
2 articles · Updated · PCMag · Jul 8
Summary
Tonga fully restored internet service after 16 months, ending an outage that left roughly 100,000 residents cut off when a 2022 underwater volcanic eruption severed both its international and Vava'u domestic cables.
A 100km replacement section was needed because the main cable was sliced in two places, while the domestic link also had to be rebuilt amid pandemic delays, factory backlogs and scarce cable-repair ships.
In the first weeks, residents reverted to handwritten banking, door-to-door welfare checks and centralized food distribution; emergency satellite calls to Australia and New Zealand took four days to arrange.
SpaceX later donated 50 Starlink terminals, giving Tonga limited public Wi-Fi until the main island's cable was repaired after six months and Vava'u's link finally returned 16 months after the eruption.
The breakdown exposed how subsea cables carry 95% to 99% of internet traffic yet remain vulnerable to accidents and sabotage, pushing Tonga to pursue a backup cable route.
Is a second undersea cable or a satellite network the smarter investment for a nation's digital survival?
Are the world's internet cables the next battleground in an era of escalating geopolitical conflict?
When a nation is unplugged from the world, what parts of modern society are the first to collapse?
Tonga’s 2024 Internet Crisis: Cable Breaks, Starlink Debates, and the Pacific’s Digital Future
Overview
In June 2024, Tonga suffered a major internet outage after an earthquake damaged the Tonga Domestic Cable Extension (TDCE), which connects the main island of Tongatapu with Vava’u. This event highlighted the ongoing vulnerability of island nations to natural disasters that impact critical subsea infrastructure. While Tonga had recently improved its international capacity with the new Hawaiki Tonga subsea cable, domestic connectivity remained fragile. The severance of the TDCE disrupted daily life and economic activities, showing how essential internet connectivity is for social media, commerce, and remittance transfers in Tonga.