Moorea, French Polynesia

Moorea, French Polynesia: Submarine Cable Landing Point

Moorea is a volcanic island in French Polynesia, situated approximately 17 kilometres northwest of Tahiti in the Windward Islands group of the Society Islands archipelago. As a submarine cable landing point, Moorea connects French Polynesia to the broader transpacific cable network. One submarine cable makes landfall here, linking the island territory to the United States across the Pacific Ocean.

The single cable serving Moorea, the Honotua system, spans 4,805 kilometres and establishes a transpacific corridor between French Polynesia and the United States. This connection positions Moorea as a point of entry for international capacity into the French Polynesian island chain, bridging one of the more remote corners of the South Pacific with North American network infrastructure.

Cables Landing at Moorea

The Honotua cable is the sole submarine cable landing at Moorea. Stretching 4,805 kilometres, it reached ready-for-service status in 2010 and connects landing points in French Polynesia with the United States. The cable links the two territories across the central Pacific, providing a direct transoceanic route from the Society Islands toward the North American coastline.

Regional Context

Within French Polynesia's submarine cable geography, Moorea sits at the lower end of the landing point hierarchy by cable count, hosting one cable alongside peers such as Arutua and Fakarava, which also each host a single cable. By contrast, Papenoo serves four cables and Faratea serves three, making those locations the more concentrated hubs within the territory. Moorea's position places it in the top 83 percent of French Polynesia's 23 landing points when ranked by cable count, reflecting a broadly distributed national network across many island locations.

Network Role

Moorea functions as a single-cable terminus rather than a multi-cable hub. Through the Honotua system, the island participates in the transpacific corridor connecting French Polynesia to the United States, a route that spans over 4,800 kilometres of open ocean. The cable's 2010 ready-for-service date coincides with the beginning of French Polynesia's submarine cable era, as records show no earlier cable landings in the territory.

As one of 23 landing points distributed across French Polynesia's island groups, Moorea represents the geographic dispersal that characterises the territory's approach to submarine cable infrastructure — extending international connectivity beyond the main concentration of cables at sites such as Papenoo and Faratea to individual islands within the archipelago. This distribution across the Society Islands and beyond illustrates how French Polynesia's cable network reaches across a wide oceanic footprint.