Original fiber optic cable system serving Am Samoa retired from service

Pago Pago, AMERICAN SAMOA — The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has been informed that the American Samoa to Hawaii fiber optic link of the American Samoa Hawaii Cable, LLC (or ASH Cable system) was decommissioned last summer while the link connecting the two Samoas remains in service with a new name.

FCC included this announcement in its Dec. 31, 2020 end of the year report on actions taken under the federal Cable Landing License Act.

According to the report, AST Telecom, LLC d.b.a Bluesky, the American Samoa Hawaii Cable, LLC, and Samoa American Samoa Cable, LLC — the Licensees — notified the FCC by letter on Oct. 23, 2020, that the American Samoa-Hawaii segment of the American Samoa Hawaii Cable System “was retired and taken out of commercial service effective July 16, 2020.”

The FCC was also informed that the segment of the system connecting Samoa and American Samoa remains in service and will now be known as the “Samoa American Samoa Cable System”.

No other information on this matter was publicly available on the FCC website.

However, then ASH Cable chief executive officer, Paul Young told a House committee hearing last August that the American Samoa to Hawaii link was decommissioned in June last year and that American Samoa’s fiber optic link to Hawaii and the US is now provided by Hawaiki cable.

Young, who is also the chief operations officer of Bluesky, said the decommissioning was because the cost of operating that cable-link “exceeded the amount of revenue that it was bringing in.” Additionally, the American Samoa-Hawaii link was no longer viable while the Samoa American Samoa cable link remains operating as it was viable with more businesses using it. 

Launched in July 2009 under the Togiola Administration, ASH-Cable was 33% owned by ASG while the majority holder is Bluesky and its parent company. Information that has come out of Fono hearings on ASH-Cable indicates that ASG received about $3.8 million in dividends from this venture.

Samoa News has previously reported that ASG’s original investment was $9 million — with the help of federal funds.

ASH-Cable was the first fiber optic cable for American Samoa, before Hawaiki cable was launched in American Samoa in mid 2019.