For a while there Tonga was getting some of the best internet speeds on the planet.
The tiny nation is 800-odd km from its nearest neighbour, Fiji, and has 100k-plus people spread over 52 islands. But when they connected an undersea cable fibre optic cable from Fiji in 2013 they were suddenly enjoying speeds which would make Australians cry with jealousy – like, 10 gigabytes per second, compared with Australia’s 10 megabytes per second if the internet-wind’s blowing the right way.
HONESTLY I’M NEVER GOING TO FINISH BANDERSNATCH AT THIS RATE.
However, that speed has now dropped to basically nothing because a storm has knocked the cable out of action and Tonga now faces between two and three weeks of very, very limited internet and mobile service.
It’s a bigger problem than you’d think too. Simple things like phone banking or paying with bank cards is now very limited, while the BBC reports that airlines are now having to remember how the hell they did manual bookings before the internet changed everything.
And that’s before you think about all that poor internet porn being dangerously unconsumed.
Think of those poor, intrusive pop ups, languishing un-up-popped…
In order to preserve the limited bandwidth that the nation still has via satellite the government is considering blocking social media until things are back online.
And honestly, imagine what that would be like… Mmmmmm. So peaceful. new terrifying news. So few dickh… Um, sorry, what we talking about? Oh yeah: Tonga.
A repair ship is reportedly ready to leave Samoa to re-weld the thing before the nation is entirely thrown back into the Pre-Digital Age, when people had to do things.
In any case we’re betting that Tonga’s going to enjoy a heck of a baby boom in mid-September.