Coral Sea Cable System — ending Solomon Islands' satellite-only internet era

Before 2020, Solomon Islands depended on limited, costly satellite links (and later the Kacific-1 satellite, launched in late 2019) for international internet connectivity, with fixed broadband largely restricted to government, corporate and educational institutions.
The Coral Sea Cable System, a 4,700km submarine fibre-optic cable, was built over an 18-month construction period and completed in December 2019. Australia provided the majority of financing, with Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands jointly contributing up to a third of project costs. The system can deliver up to 20 terabits per second of capacity to each of Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands (up to 40Tbps combined). It was paired with the Solomon Islands Domestic Network (SIDN), a separate 730km cable extending the connection from Honiara to the provincial centres of Auki, Noro and Taro.
Since the cable's arrival, the Kacific-1 satellite that once carried the bulk of Solomon Islands' international traffic has become largely a backup link, while three mobile/ISP operators — Solomon Telekom, Bmobile and SATSOL — compete in-country, and a further SBD 37.6 million Australia-funded agreement has financed additional mobile towers to extend coverage. LTE service, launched in Honiara in late 2017, is expanding, though 3G remains the primary mobile data platform and GSM still serves many outlying areas.
Even with this large jump in international capacity, market reporting indicates fixed broadband access remains largely confined to government, corporate and educational users rather than most households — a reminder that submarine-cable capacity alone does not automatically translate into universal, affordable household access without complementary retail-market and last-mile investment.

Read the full analysis: https://coralseacablecompany.com/the-system