COOK ISLANDS, 20 July 2022
Avaroa Cable Ltd (ACL) has celebrated the official opening of its cable landing stations in Aitutaki on 11 July, following the successful opening of the Rarotonga facilities on 11 May 2022. The new facilities represent years of planning, hard work and dedication from the ACL team to ensure that the Manatua Cable project was successfully implemented. The opening events were also an opportunity to thank key stakeholders, including landowners and the Cook Islands donor funding partners, the Asian Development Bank and the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs & Trade. The Hon. Patrick Arioka, Minister of Telecommunications, opened the Rarotonga buildings, and the Aitutaki cable landing station was opened by Mike Henry, Chairman of the Cook Islands Investment Corporation.
Each of the Manatua Consortium parties in French Polynesia, the Cook Islands, Niue and Samoa were responsible for constructing their own cable landing stations. In the case of ACL, this has meant a station each in Rarotonga and Aitutaki. The buildings have been designed to house the equipment required to receive the cable, along with plant and stand-by generator systems to maintain operations during power outages. The Rarotonga station includes ACL’s network operations centre and a colocation data centre space where businesses can rent secured space in a monitored environment to store their servers and other hardware.
Honourable Patrick Arioka, Minister of Telecommunications said: “Avaroa Cable Ltd has made a significant achievement in undertaking this complex project and delivering it on time and within budget. The technologically sophisticated new facilities in Rarotonga and Aitutaki are evidence of a long-term government initiative to transform the telecommunications market, and our people should be proud of this investment in our country. We encourage all licensed internet service providers to make the most of this wonderful investment and use the cable to pass along cheaper, faster and more reliable services to the Cook Islands people.”
Mike Schwarz, CEO of Avaroa Cable Ltd said: “The entire ACL team has worked very hard to complete the state-of-the-art cable landing facilities in Rarotonga and Aitutaki. Through diligent operations and ongoing maintenance activities, our local engineering team has ensured that there has been no down time since the Manatua cable began service in July 2020. While the Covid-19 pandemic has caused challenges, competition is coming, and ACL will continue to work with the existing internet service providers and any new entrants to make sure that the benefits of this fantastic cable system get passed along to the people of the Cook Islands.”
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