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According to an official in Fiji, where the work is being done, Elon Musk’s satellite internet firm is assisting with the restoration of access to the Pacific Island nation of Tonga.
A volcanic explosion on Jan. 15 cut Tonga’s only optic-fibre link to the internet and the rest of the globe, and only limited communication has been possible since.
On Twitter, Fiji’s Attorney-General Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum announced, “A SpaceX team is now in Fiji installing a Starlink gateway station to reconnect Tonga to the globe.”
Starlink is a part of Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s SpaceX aerospace company, and Musk himself suggested that Starlink might be able to assist in January on Twitter.
The eruption of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano resulted in a tsunami that wrecked villages and resorts, coated the capital of the nation of around 105,000 people in ash, and severed the nation’s fiber-optic communications connection.
The exact date of SpaceX’s work is unknown, but according to the Fijian Broadcasting Corporation, engineers will run a ground station in Fiji for six months, quoting Sayed-Khaiyum.
An emailed request for comment from SpaceX was not immediately answered. The prime minister’s office and Tonga Communications Corporation, the country’s state-owned telecommunications company, could not be reached for comment.
Any improvement in communications will likely be welcomed by Tongans who have been unable to communicate with family abroad and participate in recovery efforts, which have been impeded by a COVID-19 lockdown.
