|
||
|
Satellites Tapped to Solve Asia Telecom Problem After Big Taiwan Earthquake |
||
|
TAIWAN, Dec. 29, 2006/Satnews Daily/ — Asian telecommunication companies have started to use satellites to solve the region’s current communications and Internet problem after undersea cables were damaged in last week’s earthquakes south of Taiwan.
An earthquake with a magnitude of 6.5 shook the southern seas off Taiwan at 20:00 on Dec. 26 rupturing two crucial cables -- SMW3 and APCN -- causing outages in telecoms and Internet connections throughout Asia. Internet and phone call volume plummeted by half, according to reports, and web browsing slowed to a crawl in the world’s fastest-growing communications marketplace.
Telecom companies immediately restored the telecom routes in accordance with contingency plan but two more joltings followed and broke the restoration routes (APCN and the southern section of APCN2) in the early morning of Dec. 27.
Chunghwa Telecom, a leading telecom service provider in Taiwan, said currently only the northern sections of SMW3 and APCN2 are available to accommodate the traffic. It added the company has made use of the unaffected cables and satellite circuit (ST-1) to increase the number of usable circuits.
On Friday, Chunghwa said the completion rate has been improved greatly with routing assistance from foreign carriers. On Dec. 28, the completion rate to USA was upgraded to 76 percent, Mainland China 57 percent, Canada 64 percent, Japan 73 percent, Hong Kong 45 percent, Singapore 57 percent, Europe 50 percent, and Southeastern Asia also to 30 percent.
Chunghwa added four cable ships will be dispatched to the outage areas and repair work will begin on Jan. 1, 2007. The recovery is scheduled to be completed around three weeks. Chunghwa estimated its revenue loss from the earthquake damage at about $3 million while repair of the cables would cost about $1.53 million.
Wednesday’s earthquake and aftershocks jolted Asia for hours but the telecommunication disruptions may reverberate for weeks. The disaster highlights the vulnerability of international telecommunications in a global economy that has grown dependent on real-time communications. It also raises the stakes for $500 million in planned investments in new transpacific undersea cables.
Asia Pacific VSAT Market Continues Steady Growth New Asian DTH Operator ProtoStar Closes $210-M Financing for First Satellite AsiaSat Taps Integral Systems for AsiaSat 5 Satellite Control System |
||
