Tonga now has 5G after the country’s two main mobile operators – state-owned incumbent Tonga Communications Corporation (TCC) and Digicel Tonga commercially launched their respective 5G networks within a week of each other.
TCC – which offers mobile services under the U Call brand – launched its 5G network recently at its headquarters in Nuku’alofa in partnership with Chinese vendor Huawei.
The launch came less than a week after rival telco Digicel Tonga launched its 5G service on November 29, with six sites live in Kolomotu’a, Fanga, Pili, Kolofo’ou, Ma’ufanga and Ma’ufanga Wharf.
Digicel Tonga said that its 5G network achieved downlink speeds of 550-600 Mbps in initial tests, although the telco clarified that real-world speeds would likely be lower depending on the usual conditions (distance from the tower, network traffic loads, etc). Digicel Tonga said customers will automatically drop down to 4G or 3G when they are outside of 5G coverage.
A live speed test conducted by Huawei during TCC’s 5G launch registered download speeds of 854 Mbps and upload speeds of 57.2 Mbps between the 5G base station and a local server, compared to 53 Mbps downstream and 26.3 Mbps upstream for TCC’s 4G network.
Both TCC and Digicel Tonga are primarily pitching 5G as a broadband upgrade from 4G and a better customer experience. That said, TCC’s manager for technical services, ‘Iki Tu’itavake, also talked up 5G’s ability to support IoT use cases such as smart homes, as well as private 5G services for businesses.
TCC and Digicel Tonga have been testing 5G since the end of February 2024, when Ministry of Meteorology, Energy, Information, Disaster Management, Environment, Climate Change & Communications officially granted permission to use the 2500-MHz and 3500-MHz bands for 5G network tests.