American Samoa TeleCommunications Authority is gaining another step in connecting the territory to a new undersea fiber optic cable, with the marine survey of American Samoa waters in preparation to lay the cable.

ASTCA has signed a contract with Hawaiki Submarine Cable LP, the owner and developer of Hawaiki submarine cable system, where ASTCA purchases a spur to connect American Samoa to the international cable and capacity to the US West coast. (See Samoa News edition Apr. 25 for details.)

In August this year, Hawaiki and TE SubCom announced that it launched a marine route survey on Aug. 4, a significant stage in the development of Hawaiki, which is slated for completion in mid 2018. The marine route survey covers landing sites of the cable.

Now the marine survey has come to American Samoa with the arrival yesterday of the Research Vessel (R.V.) Geo Resolution, which ASTCA says will carry out the marine survey of the new Hawaiki Submarine cable which will connect American Samoa to the rest of the world providing faster, more reliable internet than ever before.

The cable will run from the US mainland to Hawai’i then to American Samoa and then on to New Zealand and Australia.

ASTCA officials and visiting guests, including the news media, were welcomed aboard by Capt. Mike Rowland Hill who showed all the different aspects of the ship including the bridge, the survey room and the instruments they use to see the bottom of the ocean.

Hill said the vessel is “absolutely the best ship to do this kind of work because it was built to be very quiet which allows the surveyors to bounce sound off the bottom of the ocean in order to create the bests possible maps,” according to an ASTCA statement yesterday afternoon.

The ship was originally a US military submarine seeker but was decommissioned after the cold war ended and was sold to the New Zealand military. Eventually it was bought by EGS Survey, which is contracted by the Hawaiki Sub-Marine Company.

Hill told Samoa News during a tour of the vessel, “What we’re doing now is surveying the seabed to make sure the seabed is right for laying the cable.”

He said the cable’s landing point would be waters near the Tafuna airport. (Samoa News should point out this is around the same area of ASH-Cable’s landing point.)

He said the vessel would either leave today or tomorrow, heading to Tonga, Fiji, New Caledonia and then on to New Zealand. He added that a report of the survey would be handed over to their main office.

Through the Hawaiki Submarine Cable, ASTA said it would be able to offer faster, more reliable, and less expensive internet for all the people of American Samoa, including Manu’a and Aunuu.

“This will create new economic opportunities for the private sector such as Call Centers that would be interested in opening up in American Samoa making more jobs available to our people, increased educational opportunities for all our children and schools, improvements to the medical field, and so much more,” ASTCA said in its press release.

“We are in the middle stages of the survey and expect to have the actual cable land here in September 2017. After that the cable will go live by June 2018, less than two years away,” it said.

The press release said, “ASTCA would like to thank all our dedicated customers and stakeholders that continue to make ASTCA the local telecommunications company. We are your company.”

Hawaiki chief executive officer Remi Galasso said in the August news release that the marine route survey “will give us data necessary to safely and properly deploy the system in the coming months.”

“We are confident that with our trusted supplier, TE SubCom, our cable will be delivered as planned in mid-2018,” he said.

Aaron Stucki, president of TE SubCom. Aaron Stucki, is quoted in the same news release saying that a marine route survey is conducted to gather the geophysical and geotechnical data needed to ensure the cable is buried safely and securely. “It’s a vital and significant step in the process of launching a new cable system, and we share in Hawaiki’s excitement as our companies move forward with this project,” he adde