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From: "Samiuela LV Taufa" <samt@cafe.afe.to> To: 'Maria Dolores Lizarzaburu' <mlizarza@darkwing.uoregon.edu> Cc: "'Steven G. Huter'" <sghuter@nsrc.org> Time: Wed, 2 Mar 2005 12:23:47 +1300 Subject: RE: The Internet in Tonga Historically. Mr. Robert Bolouri ran a FidoNET type email service circa 1994 but with less than 10 customers. Mr. Gullichsen had an operational UUCP based email service circa 1995 sending feeds from Vava'u and Ha'apai to Tongatapu (the main island) for daily batching international. > 1) Could you please provide a brief technical description of Tonga's > external connectivity to the Internet - including upstream > provider(s), international bandwidth of the link(s), etc. ? BRIEF: Tonga's International telecommunications is satellite based. Both Telecommunications companies servicing the public in Tonga use IntelSat IS-804. There is a private network operational by the University of the South Pacific (www.usp.ac.fj) for their network of 'satellite' University campuses across the South Pacific region. MORE INFORMATION: Two Telecommunications companies operate in Tonga, Shoreline Communications (www.tonfon.to) and Tonga Communications Corporation (www.tcc.to.) Shoreline provides a wireless broadband solution for its internet services. TCC provides both a dialup service as well as a DSL broadband service. Prices for both suppliers are available on the above sites and may seem exhorbitant to those used to more competitive environments. Note that the prices have at least halved since Shoreline entered the market. There are at least two other licensed operators for Internet Services. Moore Electronics/Dandin Group www.dandin.to and Office Equipment (Dateline.to) but neither of them have any ISP customers. Dandin have dialup services as well as are using Motorola Canopy wireless systems, but so far as I can tell they do not have any customers. TCC's upstream was provided by Teleglobe, last I checked, shared 2 Mb satellite transponder multiplexed between data and voice. Shoreline's upstream is currently provided through GSI (www.globecommsystems.com) They are currently in the process of getting new equipment from a new chinese partner. The GSI system is a 4 MBit Global Beam, but apparently the dish used at Shoreline can untangle other beams from IS-804, or re-aligned for picking up weaker signals from PanAMSat. > 2) Please list the ISP(s) offering service in Tonga. If possible, > include the URLs and the name and email of a technical or > administrative contact. Shoreline Communications www.shoreline.to, www.tonfon.to Services: Wireless Broadband Contact Technical: Justin Kaitapu (jjfk@colo.to) Contact Admin: John Kornele Tonga Communications Corporation www.tcc.to Service: Dialup ISP, DSL Broadband (note: no ISDN) Contact Tech: Sam Kava samkava@tcc.to Contact Admin: Timote Katoanga (tim.katoanga@tcc.to) Office Equipment: Dateline (non-operational) Contact: Tapu Panuve panuve@dateline.to; oel@dateline.to Moore Electronics/Dandin: www.dandin.to www.dgl.to Service: Dialup ISP, Wireless Broadband Contact: Richard Teulilo: rickyt@dandin.to University of the South Pacific www.usp.ac.fj Service: Private Network for University Campus in Tonga Contact Admin: Kisione Finau finau_k@usp.ac.fj > 3)Please describe examples of local scientific or medical projects > currently using the Internet in Tonga if possible. Telemedicine project was started 4 or 5 years ago but got cancelled due to apathy. Unfortunately/fortunately the Internet is not used as a specific means for scientific advancement/study, but as a general communications tool. You might have to live in a regime such as ours to understand (i.e. Telecom costs for international calls are between USD$0.25 a minute and USD$0.75 so spending time and money doing email gets very cheap, very quickly. > 4)What percentage of the population is currently connected to the > Internet? With their own, at home connection? About 5% or less (being that last I heard that was the coverage of the landline phone system) I would guesstimate that at most 5% of the population has 'ready' access to the Internet either through work or school. For real numbers we'd have to talk with people at the ISPs. "Samiuela LV Taufa" <samt@cafe.afe.to>
