Digicel Pacific, the leading telecommunications provider in the Pacific region, is bolstering its coverage in Papua New Guinea with the help of the O3b medium-earth orbit (MEO) satellite system from satellite operator SES.
O3b will help Digicel to provide its customers with seamless connectivity following damage to the international Pipe Pacific Cable (PPC) which typically connects Papua New Guinea to Australia and the rest of the world.
SES says that the additional O3b services will continue to help Digicel Pacific maintain connectivity during outages caused by such cable breaks while also expanding coverage across the remote parts of the country; 80% of Papua New Guineans live in rural areas.
SES explains that its support comes at a critical time for Papua New Guinea after a 7.7 magnitude earthquake in September, which, as we reported at the time, caused damage to multiple cable systems, resulting in large disruption to data services across most of the country.
During the disruption, SES assisted Digicel Pacific with emergency bandwidth, providing an increase of 40% in high-performance, low-latency O3b services deployed across 12 sites throughout the country to keep communities connected. SES also stepped in with an incremental 3 Gbps of capacity and additional ground equipment to enable Digicel Pacific to restore its network connectivity and critical communications services for both consumers and telecommunication customers.
SES adds that over the past decade, governments and businesses around the Pacific – including other islands prone to natural disasters like the Kingdom of Tonga – have leveraged the O3b system to provide resiliency to their networks in times of need.
