The cable laying vessel Lodbrog in position near the fault site on Solomon Islands domestic submarine internet cable. Point Cruz, Honiara July 2023. Photo: Solomon Islands Submarine Cable Company (SISCC)
The head of the Solomon Islands Submarine Cable Company (SISCC) says repair work on the country's domestic cable should be completed next week.
SISCC chief executive Keir Preedy said the cable was damaged on May 10 by a Taiwanese purse seine fishing boat which had dropped anchor in a clearly designated no-anchoring zone near the cable landing site close to the Port of Honiara.
"She pulled up the cable and damaged it sufficiently that the domestic (fibre-optic internet) connection stopped working," Preedy said.
"It was very close to the international cable. The two cables are only 50 metres apart under the water at that distance, which is why we protect them with a no-anchoring zone. And from what we can see there was no service interruption to the international cable."
Domestic internet services weren't so lucky however, and residents of Malaita, Western and Choiseul provinces experienced major internet outages.
Keir Preedy said since the incident in May, service providers have had to find work arounds for their customers.
"Auki [the capital of Malaita Province] is close enough that there is microwave backup...all of the players out West have had to go and get extra satellite bandwidth from their other providers," he said.
Damage assessment
Preedy said a cable repair ship arrived in the country on Wednesday and is assessing the damage before it starts the repair work.
He said they are proceeding with caution because the proximity of the domestic cable to the international cable means there is a risk of damaging one cable while trying to repair the other.
"We have an estimate that the repair should take around about five or six days from the boat arriving. So we expect to have it done by the 25th or 26th of July," he said.
The Taiwanese purse seiner Fukon 808 has been impounded by Solomon Islands maritime authorities since May.
Preedy said the cost of damages and loss of business will run into tens of millions of US dollars but he said he could not go into more detail as the discussions about compensation with the owners of the vessel are still ongoing.
"So, we don't have a definite time but we could get an early (court) hearing if we needed to," Preedy said.
"We keep up a degree of dialogue with the vessel owners as well through their lawyers and potentially, providing we get the right amount of recompense, we don't mind whether it's an out-of-court settlement or if we have to use a court to do it."
