Digicel PNG, part of Digicel Pacific, is reportedly enhancing its coverage in Papua New Guinea (PNG) by leveraging SES’s O3b medium-earth orbit (MEO) satellite system to provide its customers with seamless connectivity.
In a press release regarding the development – which comes after damage to the international Pipe Pacific Cable (PPC) which resulted from a 7.7 magnitude earthquake in September 2022 – it was suggested that the additional O3b services will continue to help Digicel maintain connectivity during outages caused by such cable breaks while also expanding coverage across the remote parts of the country. It was noted that during the disruption stemming from the cable damage, SES had assisted Digicel with emergency bandwidth, providing an increase of 40% in high-performance, low-latency O3b services deployed across twelve sites throughout PNG to keep communities connected. SES is also reported to have stepped in with an incremental 3Gbps of capacity and additional ground equipment to enable Digicel to restore its network connectivity and critical communications services for both consumers and telecommunication customers.
‘We are grateful for SES’s swift response in provisioning additional capacity to enable us to plug urgent and unprecedented connectivity gaps,’ said Digicel PNG CEO Colin Stone, adding: ‘Our partnership with SES has been critical to not just disaster relief efforts in Papua New Guinea, but in connecting remote populations across the Pacific region … We look forward to exploring the enhanced capabilities of SES’s O3b mPOWER satellite system to fortify network connections thus minimising network disruptions in the event of future disasters.’
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