Internet is back in Tonga after 38 days of outage

On February 22, 2022, Tonga was reconnected to the Internet after successful repairs to an undersea cable damaged by a volcanic eruption on January 14. The repair took 20 days and involved replacing a 92 km section of the 827 km submarine fiber optical cable connecting Tonga to Fiji and international networks. While people on the main island have access to the Internet, repairs for the domestic cable connecting the main island with outlying islands are expected to take six to nine months more. Undersea cables play a crucial role in global internet traffic, with 428 active submarine cables running around the globe.