I’ve been fascinated with cellar dweller countries for a while. I thought North Korea was the country at the bottom, but then discovered St Helena. So now it appears that St Helena is getting an airport and maybe even a submarine cable?
St Helena is a small island heading for big change. One of the most isolated islands in the world, St Helena has been used as a stopover for passing ships on the pre-Suez canal route from Europe to Asia and South Africa and as a place of exile. The isolation is true both physically and in terms of communications – our internet connection speeds range from 128Kbps – 2 Mbps depending on the depth of your pocket. Although improving the speed of our broadband services is dependent on securing funding to re-route a planned trans-Atlantic fibre connection the days of physical isolation are numbered. St Helena is facing up to irrevocable change with the impending arrival of air access – construction is well underway for an airport scheduled for operational completion in February 2016.
So, will there be mobile?
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Abu Saeed Khan
Cash-rich Batelco of Bahrain was supposed to launch mobile service in St. Helena. It has been deferred until June 2015, as the equipment vendor got bankrupt. Residents of the island has been also demanding Westminster’s financial assistance to get linked with a Brazil-South Africa cable.