Palau Telecoms first provided its subscribers high throughput, low latency connectivity over the O3b link in January 2015. But an immediate and sustained surge in data usage signaled additional capacity would quickly be needed, and the company upgraded in September 2015, followed by yet another upgrade in December.

Located in the western Pacific Ocean, Palau’s 21,000 people are spread across 250 islands, which do not have access to undersea fiber cable. The use of O3b satellites-which are closer to the earth than conventional geostationary (GEO) satellites-reduces latency, increases internet speed and improves voice and video quality for the user.

“Palau Telecoms is pleased to be able to again expand our partnership with O3b, empowering our country and its citizens to reimagine what is possible, from tourism to business to education,” said Sam Masang, CEO of Palau Telecoms. “For the second time we have expanded our bandwidth with O3b, whose proven network provides the low latency vital for the applications and solutions our customers want.”

“O3b is pleased to have a strong and strategic partnership with Palau Telecoms and enable the people of Palau to experience new applications and better performance,” said Imran Malik, VP of Asia Pacific & the Middle East for O3b Networks. “The O3b mission is to bring the same quality of connectivity people enjoy in major cities on the mainland, to island populations, and Palau Telecoms has helped deliver that to their subscribers.”