American Samoa Telecommunications Authority (ASTCA), and Minister of Communication and Information Technology of the Samoan Government, Toelupe Poumulinuku Onesemo, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) in support of initiatives to ensure engineering and broadband challenges meet the needs of our people competing in the new global digital economy.
The goal of the MOU is to foster and assure optimum mutual development in a framework for joint efforts in broadband infrastructure, telecommunications, local engineering capacity, and network resilience.
The tangible benefits and spirit of the MOU will be in the economic, social, and digital equity areas of American Samoa and Samoa for staying connected and relevant in the new digital economy.
The means facilitating infrastructure and affordability under digital equity will be contained by the government, not profit, for a proposed submarine fiber cable to ensure and maximize the delivery of digital equity to all people of the Samoan Archipelago, both East and West.
MOU development areas of focus are:
• Deployment of Submarine Cable; for American Samoa, the cable between the American Samoa island of Tutuila and the Samoa island of Upolu would secure the necessary redundancy of the main submarine cable connecting American Samoa to the US mainland; for Samoa, the cable would bring increased, higher-quality capacity to the country and
substantially decrease costs of service for the Independent State, improving digital equity for its citizens; microwave Backhaul Solution between Tutuila and Upolu for additional emergency telecom and broadband redundancy; capacity sharing and training in knowledge, resources, and emergency inventories.
