East Micronesia Cable System — Nauru's First International Submarine Fibre Link

Nauru, the world's third-smallest country with a population of around 12,000, relied entirely on expensive, low-capacity satellite links for international connectivity until 2025. The East Micronesia Cable System (EMCS) is a joint initiative of the governments of Nauru, Kiribati and the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM), jointly funded by Australia, Japan and the United States, with construction carried out by Japan's NEC Corporation.

The project laid an approximately 2,250 km submarine fibre-optic cable connecting Tarawa (Kiribati), Nauru and Kosrae (FSM), where it links into the existing Hantru-1 cable toward Guam. First proposed in 2017, the project was paused in 2021 after security concerns were raised about an earlier contractor bid, then resumed in 2023 under a trilateral Australia-Japan-US financing arrangement.

The cable landed in Nauru on 16 August 2025, with the system scheduled to enter commercial service around November 2025, replacing Nauru's sole prior satellite gateway and operated on an ongoing basis by the Nauru Fibre Cable Corporation (NFCC). The US$95 million project targets a combined population of up to 100,000 people across the three participating nations. As of the most recent public reporting, no post-launch usage or performance data had been published.