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ASTCA services partially restored in Manu’a — phones still out

ASTCA logo
Source: ASTCA

Pago Pago, AMERICAN SAMOA — ASTCA stated in a press release Monday night that the semi-antonymous government agency chartered a Samoa Airways aircraft to the Manu’a Islands on Sunday during a brief weather opening. The flight transported emergency Engineering teams, Field crew, supplies and emergency equipment to begin on-site troubleshooting and diagnostic tests for restoring services immediately upon landing in Ta’u.

ASTCA has been able to confirm that the service outage in Manu’a has been caused by a Fiber link between Aunu’u and Ta’u being damaged due to weather conditions. Using a Satellite solution to reroute traffic via a backup dish in Ofu, broadband services have been temporarily restored for all of Manu’a.  Customers will experience reduced speeds due to limited capacity and sometimes intermittent Internet connectivity due to weather conditions that can affect Satellite connections.

While continuing to restore all network services in Manu’a, ASTCA is also concurrently focusing on hardening and securing their temporary Satellite solution against the weather — and finding the exact location of the breakage to determine if the fiber can be repaired immediately, or if additional resources are required. During this time, Landline and Mobile services continue to be inoperative.

ASTCA will continue to provide updates to the Public and Essential Service providers as they are made available. Time estimates for bringing the network back up 100% are not possible at this time due to interruptions caused by inclement weather and rough oceans. ASTCA ended thanking the people of Manu’a for their gracious hospitality and assistance in helping the Engineering teams restore communication services in the Manu’a Islands.