Page 29 - Islands Business May-June 2022

ICT ICT

AN UMBILICAL CORD BETWEEN NEW

CALEDONIA AND FIJI

By Samantha Magick Gondwana 2 provides New Caledonia with redundancy, or a
back-up if one cable goes down.
When the Gondwana 2 submarine cable linking New Cale- “It’s important for New Caledonia to secure its Internet
donia and Fiji was landed in Suva last month, FINTEL CEO traffic,” Muliava said. “You saw what happened in Tonga, we
George Samisoni described it as an “umbilical cord” linking have to avoid all these difficulties.”
the Pacific. The cable will enter into commercial service this August,
Samisoni said it took seven years and three French Ambas- with the Office of Posts and Telecommunications of Nouvelle-
sadors to reach the milestone, and that the cable will prepare Caledonia (OPT-NC) anticipating an “increase in Internet
New Caledonia for the next generation of ICT. traffic linked to the development of new digital uses (5G,
“Not only that, but New Caledonia will also be spreading its widespread use of Fiber to the Home, Internet of Things). It
tentacles to the other islands that are connected directly here says the cable will strengthen New Caledonia’s regional iinflu-
to Fiji and FINTEL,” Samisoni said. ence, increase the territory’s sovereignty, and develop its
“They will be directly connected to Tonga, to Vanuatu, economic attractiveness.
to Samoa. They will be directly connected to Cook Islands, Samisoni says that data shows that Pacific islands that have
Niue, Kiribati, Wallis and Futuna, and French Polynesia, all by submarine cable access see an upswing in GDP growth.
accessing their presence here through FINTEL Fiji,” Samisoni “Obviously, the Tonga experience has opened up the eyes of
added. the Pacific islands. In terms of the 15 most globally exposed
New Caledonia’s Minister for Telecommunications, Vaimua countries in the world, four are from the Pacific. And we’ve
Muliava, likened the cable to the ancient maritime roads of seen that, apart from COVID, ICT is virtually stitching the
our Pacific ancestors. world together.”
“I see digital like an ocean. None of us can live by himself. “Globally, there’s about 4 billion people who don’t have
And our ancestors already knew that. access to the internet, 9 million of them in the Pacific islands.
“My view with all this digitalisation is we have to strengthen So this Gondwana 2 is a great contribution to closing the digi-
our link, like our ancestors, because if we don’t do that we tal gap which we have in the Pacific,” Samisoni said.
die. We die. And in this moment of globalisation, we have to
be captain of this world, and not passengers. And in order to editor@islandsbusiness.com
be captains, we have to master the cable.”

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