GIFF JOHNSON
The world of streaming movies, Facebook videos and Skype conversations will grind mostly to a halt for nine days at the end of October when NTA shifts Internet and phone links from the highly-reliable fiber optic cable to satellites.
The “bandwidth” available to RMI customers for Internet and international calling will shrink from October 29 to November 6 — when repairs are scheduled to the submarine fiber optic cable that has linked Majuro, Ebeye and Kwajalein to the outside world since it was installed in 2009.
A “power anomaly” was discovered recently in the fiber optic cable located 11 miles west of Kwajalein. A cable repair vessel will be heading to this location at the end of next week to launch repair work.
“The big story is people will need to cut back on watching streaming videos and social media so that work-related communications can function,” said NTA General Manager Tommy Kijiner, Jr.
The cable is providing the RMI with 1,500MB of bandwidth; the satellites that will handle communications traffic during the down period will provide only 20-30MB, according to Kijiner.
Read more about this in the October 21, 2016 edition of the Marshall Islands Journal.