Undersea Earthquake in Taiwan crippled Internet Access in the Philippines
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(This is my second attempt posting this topic on my blog as the first one failed to connect and waisted my 20 minutes writing this. So I’ll just get to the point and point you to the source sites)
TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — Nearly all Asia’s earthquake-disrupted Internet service and 80 percent of its phone service should be restored by noon (0400 GMT) Thursday, a Taiwanese official said following one of the largest telecommunications outages in years to hit Asia.
Lin Jen-hung, vice-general manager of Taiwan’s Chunghwa Telecom also said that four ships with crews to repair the two undersea data transmission cables ruptured during Tuesday’s powerful earthquake in Taiwan will arrive in the affected area on January 2.
The 6.7-magnitude earthquake and aftershocks on Tuesday night and Wednesday caused disruptions for major telecommunications operators from Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan, China, Singapore and South Korea — with ripple effects spreading beyond Asia.
News from the Associated Press
TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — Telecom companies quickly cobbled together new telephone and Internet networks on Thursday as Asia began recovering from a Taiwanese earthquake that snapped undersea cables, snarling service across the tech-savvy region.
Less than 48 hours after the powerful quake ruptured the two crucial cables off Taiwan’s southern tip, companies from South Korea to Singapore said they managed to partially restore most of their service to millions of customers.
They did it by rerouting traffic through satellites and cables that weren’t damaged by the 6.7-magnitude tremor that killed two people.
Four repair ships were sailing to the quake zone, but they weren’t expected to arrive until Tuesday, said Lin Jen-hung, vice-general manager of Chunghwa Telecom Co., Taiwan’s biggest phone company.
The crews would need to find the fault, survey the conditions and pull up the cables for repair - a job Chunghwa said could take two weeks.
Most international Internet data and voice calls travel as pulses of light through hundreds of undersea fiber optic cables crisscrossing the globe. The cables - clusters of glass fibers enclosed in protective material - are often owned by groups of telecom companies, who share costs and capacity.
News from the Philippine Daily Inquirer
A “fiber break” in the major submarine cables linking the Philippines to the international network caused a nationwide disruption in Internet and telephone services, local telecommunications company said Wednesday.
The Philippines’ links to the Internet were damaged following a 7.1 magnitude earthquake that struck Taiwan early Wednesday.
“These are major submarine cables linking the Philippines to the United States. We said earlier that it was only the Internet but apparently it has affected international voice calls,” John Rojo, head of corporate communications of Bayantel, in a telephone interview.
I hope this problem will be fixed by January 2 2007.
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