In 2009, American Samoa was connected to the Internet using the
American Samoa Hawaii Cable (ASH)
undersea communications cable that increased bandwidth from 20 Mbit/s to 1 Gbit/s. The project used a defunct PacRim East cable built in 1993 that previously connected Hawaii with New Zealand. The cable system now connects
Samoa to American Samoa and then to
Hawaii where it will connect to global submarine networks. In July 2018, the Hawaiki cable was activated with a branch providing a 200 Gb/s connection from Pago Pago to Hawaii, New Zealand, Australia, and Oregon.
Situation in 2016 In 2012, American Samoa had the most expensive Internet access service in the U.S. according to
Engadget. Under Governor
Togiola Tulafono investment in a fibre optic network to replace aging copper infrastructure across all the islands of American Samoa and the construction in 2015 of a 1.2 Gbit/s satellite uplink via
O3b Networks which more than doubled available bandwidth to the rest of the world resulted in broadband Internet service becoming more affordable, with the price of the cheapest available residential package decreasing from $75/month to $50/month and download speeds of the base package increasing from 256 kbit/s to 768 kbit/s. The improved connectivity to the outside world has revived previously stalled hopes that a call center could be opened in American Samoa, boosting the local economy. ==Aleki Sene, Sr. Telecommunications Center==