Cutremurul din ASIA a lasat china, taiwan, korea, japonia si alte tari cu un internet “castrat” de anul nou … nasoala treaba !
- cel putin 6 cabluri submarine la sud de taiwan au fost intrerupte

Taiwan quake interrupts internet, telephone service in Asia

Taipei (dpa) – A strong earthquake in Taiwan damaged undersea cables linking the island with South-East Asia, Europe and the United States, disrupting service Wednesday for tens of millions of internet and telephone users across Asia.

The damage to the cables has forced telecommunications companies across the continent to activate backup systems or find alternative routes to return service to normal as quickly as possible.

“Repairing the undersea cables will take two to three weeks,” said Lin Jen-hung, spokesman for Chunghwa Telecom, Taiwan’s telecommunications monopoly.

The Philippines largest telecom firm reduced its bandwidth Wednesday because of the “major cable breaks” caused by the earthquake.

“The international consortium operating these cable systems has already mobilized cable ships to repair the affected segments, and restoration work is being conducted round the clock,” Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co said in a statement.

“In the meantime, we are maximizing the use of available international linkages and finding alternative routes to hasten restoration of normal service,” it said.

The damaged submarine cables substantially slowed down internet traffic in China, which, with more than 120 million users, has the second-largest number of internet surfers in the world. Some international websites, such as Yahoo, were also inaccessible.

China Telecom, one of the mainland’s main telecommunications and broadband-service providers, said that at least six of its undersea cables south of Taiwan had been cut and, while repairs were being made, service disruptions could last “quite a while.”

South Korea’s largest fixed-line and broadband service provider, KT Corp, said Wednesday that six of its submarine cables were also disconnected by the earthquake.

Although services were returned to normal through rerouting, 32 clients using leased lines were affected, a company spokesman said.

More than 20 companies that were using communications lines between South Korea and Taiwan, including Citibank and HSBC, have been affected by the disruption while service to some other banks remained paralyzed, South Korea’s Yonhap News agency reported.

Taiwan’s Chunghwa said telephone calls to the United States were down to 40 per cent of normal capacity while calls to China were down to 10 per cent and 11 per cent for Japan.

Tokyo-based KDDI Corp said it needs time to fix the phone problems and was trying to secure an alternative route via Europe to improve the situation, Jiji Press reported.

Hong Kong’s PCCW Ltd said it only had 50 per cent of its data capacity in the region, affecting business and home users across the city on the first day back to work after the Christmas holiday.

PCCW said the quake had affected infinite connections and customers might experience congestion for several days although the company was hesitant to give an exact timeline. “I don’t want to have to eat my words later,” a PCCW spokesman said. “We are doing our best but can’t say how long the problem will last,” he said. “It is is an unfortunate natural event.”

Internet users in Vietnam can connect, but an overload was slowing connection times.

“All of Vietnam’s ISPs are now operating at 30 per cent of normal volume,” said Troung Dinh Anh, telecommunications director of FPT, a major internet-service provider.

“We call upon our users and clients to reduce their internet access so that we are able to provide minimal information for e-mail downloads,” Troung added.

Service was also interrupted as far away as Singapore, said providers Star Hub and Singapore Telecommunications, although SingTel said its undersea cable link with Europe was not affected.

Tuesday’s magnitude-6.7 quake with its epicentre 22.8 kilometres under the ocean floor off Henghcun on Taiwan’s southern tip has been followed by hundreds of aftershocks. Two people have died, 48 injured and several buildings have collapsed.

Sursa: http://www.bangkokpost.com/topstories.php?id=115520