Digicel Pacific Taps SES’s Services to Bolster Disaster Recovery for Tonga Islands

Digicel Pacific uses O3b mPOWER, SES’s medium earth orbit constellation, to enable it to restore critical communications quickly in the event of natural disasters

LUXEMBOURG--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Amidst the increase in natural disasters in the Pacific Region, Digicel Pacific and SES have announced an agreement to bolster Digicel Pacific’s network with SES's service to enable critical communications to be restored quickly in the event of natural disasters. This agreement is an extension of the companies' long-standing partnership.

Following the earthquake that hit Tonga in August 26th, Tonga Domestic Cable Extension (TDCE), the island nation’s only domestic subsea cable connection, was damaged. Through SES’s satellite service, Digicel Pacific was able to restore inter-island voice, SMS, and data services on the islands of Vava’u within 6 hours.

Digicel Pacific Regional HUB Markets CEO, Shally Jannif said, “The expanded agreement with SES and the use of its O3b mPOWER network will give the nation of Tonga greater peace of mind that in the event of a significant disaster, we will have the ability to access a large amount of low-latency, high-throughput connectivity. Being able to implement disaster recovery networks quickly after the recent earthquake enabled people to get back online and assure their loved ones of their safety. At the same time, it also enabled local business to get their operations back up quickly, minimising the potential disruption to their businesses.”

John Turnbull, Director, Sales, Enterprise & Cloud, Pacific at SES said, "When natural disasters occur, it is of upmost importance to restore communications in a matter of hours. This extended collaboration using SES’s service will enable Digicel Pacific to provide enhanced resilience with large bandwidth and low-latency connectivity flexibly and quickly."

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About Digicel Pacific

Digicel Pacific is a leading provider of telecommunications and entertainment services, offering a wide range of products and services to individuals and businesses.

At Digicel Pacific, we're bringing the future into the present, enriching the digital lives of every customer we serve. Our people are a direct reflection of our commitment to being the very best in delivering digital services, experiences and connectivity to our six markets in the South Pacific.

About SES

SES has a bold vision to deliver amazing experiences everywhere on Earth by distributing the highest quality video content and providing seamless data connectivity services around the world. As a provider of global content and connectivity solutions, SES owns and operates a geosynchronous orbit fleet and medium earth orbit (GEO-MEO) constellation of satellites, offering a combination of global coverage and high performance services. By using its intelligent, cloud-enabled network, SES delivers high-quality connectivity solutions anywhere on land, at sea or in the air, and is a trusted partner to telecommunications companies, mobile network operators, governments, connectivity and cloud service providers, broadcasters, video platform operators and content owners around the world. The company is headquartered in Luxembourg and listed on Paris and Luxembourg stock exchanges (Ticker: SESG). Further information is available at: www.ses.com.