O3b Networks will provide Telecom Cook Islands with bandwidth for high speed Internet connectivity to four additional southern islands in the nation, as well as faster internet to the island Mitiaro via a microwave radio link, the companies announced Nov. 6.
   O3b’s Medium Earth Orbit satellite constellation will supply the bandwidth and is scheduled to start service in third quarter 2013. This agreement extends the previous Telecom Cook Islands 2011 deal with O3b to now distribute bandwidth more cost effectively, aiming to provide Rarotonga, Aitutaki, Atui, Mangaia, and Mauke with more than twenty times their current bandwidth.
   The new broadband network aims to benefit the local economy of the outer Cook Islands by connecting citizens with other businesses throughout the world. The deal will also allow the Cook Islands to provide better service to the Northern Group by reallocating existing satellite capacity.
   “This new agreement with the Cook Islands showcases the benefit of fiber-like performance delivered over O3b’s unique satellite network,” O3b CEO Steve Collar said in a statement. “The ultra-low latency and vast bandwidth provides everything that fiber can but in addition delivers and shares the bandwidth between several landing points across multiple distributed islands – something that fiber does not do.”