Telecommunications in Tuvalu cover

Tuvalu Tuvalu ( or ; formerly known as the Ellice Islands) is an island country and microstate in the Polynesian subregion of Oceania in the Pacific Ocean. Its islands are situated about midway between Hawaii and Australia. They lie east-nor ...

's 6

atolls An atoll () is a ring-shaped island, including a coral rim that encircles a lagoon partially or completely. There may be coral islands or cays on the rim. Atolls are located in warm tropical or subtropical oceans and seas where corals can gro ...

and 3

reef A reef is a ridge or shoal of rock, coral or similar relatively stable material, lying beneath the surface of a natural body of water. Many reefs result from natural, abiotic processes— deposition of sand, wave erosion planing down rock o ...

islands. The

islands of Tuvalu Tuvalu consists of nine separate islands: six atolls and three reef islands. An atoll typically consists of several islets: Tuvalu has a total of 124 islands and islets. Each island is surrounded by a coral reef. Tuvalu's small, widely scattered a ...

rely on satellite dishes for communication and internet access. The

Tuvalu Telecommunications Corporation Tuvalu Telecommunications Corporation (TTC) is a state-owned enterprise of Tuvalu, which provides fixed-line telephone communications to subscribers on each of the islands of Tuvalu. Each island in Tuvalu relies on TTC for the use of a satellite ...

(TTC), a state-owned enterprise, provides fixed line telephone communications to subscribers on each island and mobile phone services on

Funafuti Funafuti is the capital of the island nation of Tuvalu. It has a population of 6,320 people (2017 census), and so it has more people than the rest of Tuvalu combined, with approximately 60% of the population. It consists of a narrow sweep of lan ...

Vaitupu Vaitupu is the largest atoll of the nation of Tuvalu. It is located at 7.48 degrees south and 178.83 degrees east. There are 1,061 people (2017 Census) living on with the main village being Asau. Geography The island, which covers approxima ...

and

Nukulaelae Nukulaelae is an atoll that is part of the nation of Tuvalu, and it has a population of 300 (2017 census). The largest settlement is Pepesala on Fangaua islet with a population of 300 people (2017 Census). It has the form of an oval and consists of ...

. TTC is a distributor of

Fiji Television Fiji Television Limited is one of Fiji's main television network. It was founded on 15 June 1994 as the first permanent commercial television broadcasting network in the country, although television had previously been introduced temporarily ...

service (

Sky Pacific SKY Pacific is a Fiji based pay TV service formerly owned by Fiji Television Limited delivering encrypted signals of 25 channels via direct-to-home (DTH) satellite on C-band to subscribers in Fiji and across the South Pacific. It is headquartered ...

satellite television service).

Telephones

Telephone A telephone is a telecommunications device that permits two or more users to conduct a conversation when they are too far apart to be easily heard directly. A telephone converts sound, typically and most efficiently the human voice, into e ...

s - main lines in use: 900 (2005) Telephones - mobile cellular: 1300 (2005) Telephone system:
''domestic:'' radiotelephone communications between islands
''international:'' country code - 688; international calls can be made by satellite

Radio and television

Radio Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmi ...

broadcast stations: AM 1, FM 0, shortwave 0 (2011) - The Tuvalu Media Department of the Government of Tuvalu operates ''Radio Tuvalu'', which broadcasts on the AM frequency. In 2011 the Japanese government provided financial support to construct a new AM broadcast studio. The new AM radio transmitter on Funafuti replaced the FM radio service to the outer islands and freed up satellite bandwidth for mobile services. Radios: 4,000 (1997)

Television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertisin ...

broadcast stations: TTC is a distributor of Fiji Television service (Sky Pacific satellite television service). Televisions: unknown number.

Internet

Internet Service Providers (ISPs): ''Tuvalu.tv'' is the sole provider of Internet access in Tuvalu. The ISP is operated by the ICT (Information and Communications Technology) Department of the Government of Tuvalu. In 2012 the available bandwidth was only 512 kbit/s uplink, and 1.5 Mbit/s downlink. Throughout Tuvalu are more than 900 subscribers who want to use the satellite service, with demand slowing down the speed of the entire system. TTC currently operates satellite internet services with less than 20 Mbit/s of capacity. In June 2014 TTC signed a five-year agreement with

Kacific Broadband Satellites Kacific Broadband Satellites Group (Kacific) is a satellite operator providing a high-speed broadband internet service for the South East Asia and Pacific Islands regions. Its first Ka-band HTS satellite, Kacific1, was designed and built by Boeing a ...

for the supply of provide high speed bandwidth to the islands of Tuvalu. From 2017 the service was provided by the Kacific-1 satellite -

Ka band The Ka band (pronounced as either "kay-ay band" or "ka band") is a portion of the microwave part of the electromagnetic spectrum defined as frequencies in the range 26.5–40 gigahertz (GHz), i.e. wavelengths from slightly over one centim ...

High-throughput satellite High-throughput satellite (HTS) is a communications satellite that provides more throughput than a classic FSS satellite (at least twice, though usually by a factor of 20 or more) for the same amount of allocated orbital spectrum, thus significan ...

(HTS) provided by Kacific Broadband Satellites which provided TTC with increased levels of capacity over the period. In July 2020, the Government of Tuvalu signed a five-year agreement with Kacific for 400Mbps to 600Mbps of satellite capacity. the agreement provides a comprehensive turnkey service including sixty 1.2 metre VSAT terminals (satellite dishes) for schools, medical clinics, government agencies and small businesses, forty outdoor WiFi access points to support community connectivity with WiFi hotspots, three maritime antennae to connect ferry services, and one Ka-band antennae to provide trunking and backhaul services for the mobile phone network. In January 2019 the

World Bank The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans and grants to the governments of low- and middle-income countries for the purpose of pursuing capital projects. The World Bank is the collective name for the Inte ...

approved a US$29 million grant for the Tuvalu Telecommunications and ICT Development Project which is intended to boost internet connectivity in Tuvalu, including to the country's outer islands. The project will also support investments in an international

optical fiber An optical fiber, or optical fibre in Commonwealth English, is a flexible, transparent fiber made by drawing glass ( silica) or plastic to a diameter slightly thicker than that of a human hair. Optical fibers are used most often as a mea ...

submarine cable Submarine cable is any electrical cable that is laid on the seabed, although the term is often extended to encompass cables laid on the bottom of large freshwater bodies of water. Examples include: *Submarine communications cable *Submarine power ...

to provide faster, lower-cost internet bandwidth. The project will include reforms of the

(TCC) to redevelop the government-run entity as a public-private partnership (PPP) in cooperation with an experienced international telecommunications operator, which will selected using a competitive process.

Country code Country codes are short alphabetic or numeric geographical codes (geocodes) developed to represent countries and dependent areas, for use in data processing and communications. Several different systems have been developed to do this. The term ...

(Top level domain): TV (see

.tv The domain name .tv is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Tuvalu. Except for reserved names like com.tv, net.tv, org.tv and others, any person may register second-level domains under .tv. The domain name is popular, and thus ...

)

References

{{Telecommunications