Tonga's telecommunications system has been
severely restricted since January 15 when a violent volcanic eruption and
tsunami severed its underwater fibre-optic cable.
Musk's SpaceX is providing 50
very-small-aperture terminals (VSAT) "and we are looking at how we can
best utilise it," Prime Minister Siaosi Sovaleni said Friday.
The tiny South Pacific kingdom was also
considering offers to increase Tonga's internet capacity, which has been
operating on a very small bandwidth since the cable was broken.
"It's something we are testing right
now," he said.
Technical staff from SpaceX and the Tonga
Government were working on installing the equipment to have it operational from
next week.
The volcanic eruption, so powerful it was
heard as far away as Alaska and triggered a tsunami that flooded coastlines
around the Pacific, shredded an 80-kilometre (50 miles) stretch of Tonga's
undersea telecommunications cable.
Sovaleni said he expected temporary repairs
to be completed early next week.