http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9136558/Asian_undersea_cable_disruption_slows_Internet_access?taxonomyId=1
A segment of the Asia-Pacific Cable Network 2 (APCN2) undersea
cable network between China and Taiwan suffered a serious cable
fault on Wednesday, causing Internet traffic to be rerouted onto
other undersea cables and slowing Internet access for some users in
Southeast Asia.
At about 10:50 a.m. on Wednesday, local time, an alarm signaled
a cable fault on Segment 7 of APCN2, which connects Hong Kong and
Shantou, China. The disruption caused a temporary loss of service
on the undersea link but all customers that use the cable were soon
shifted to capacity on other cables, according to a source familiar
with the situation.
The APCN2 cable is owned by a consortium of 26 telecom operators
from 14 different countries. The cable links Singapore, Malaysia,
the Philippines, Hong Kong, Taiwan, China, South Korea and
Japan.
The exact cause of the APCN2 fault was not immediately known.
The alarm indicated the disruption was caused by a "single point of
failure," which suggests a variety of possibilities, including a
technical failure or a cable cut, the source said.
The incident was likely the main reason that Internet access
appeared slower for some users in Singapore on Wednesday, the
source said.
Undersea cables are used to transport much of the world's
Internet traffic and can be easily damaged by natural disasters or
other causes. In 2006, a powerful earthquake off the southern coast
of Taiwan damaged several cables and slowed Internet access to a
crawl for users in Southeast Asia.
To what extent Singaporean users were affected by the latest
disruption was not immediately clear. Singaporean Internet service
provider Singapore Telecommunications (SingTel), which is an
investor in APCN2, did not respond to a request for comment. A
spokesman for
Starhub, another Singapore ISP that holds a stake in the cable,
did not return a phone call seeking comment.
The fault that hit APCN2 on Wednesday follows two other service
disruptions that recently hit the network. One disruption affected
APCN2 Segment 7, between Hong Kong and Taiwan, and the other
affected APCN2 Segment 1, which connects Singapore and Malaysia.
However, both of these disruptions were deemed to be "relatively
minor" compared to the disruption that took place Wednesday
morning, the source said.
The cause of the two earlier faults on APCN2 was not immediately
clear.
APCN2 isn't the only Asian undersea cable currently suffering
from a service disruption.
Efforts are currently underway to repair the East Asia Crossing
(EAC) undersea cable after it experienced "double faults" off the
coast of Taiwan last weekend, according to Roland Lim, a spokesman
for Pacnet, which owns EAC.
The first sign of damage to the EAC cable off the coast of
Taiwan came on Aug. 9 at 1:37 a.m., local time, when an alarm
signalled that service on EAC Segment D, which links Taiwan and
Hong Kong, had been disrupted, Pacnet said in an Aug. 10 Network
Event Notification that was obtained by IDG News Service. At the
time, traffic on Segment D was transferred to EAC Segment C.
However, Segment C suffered a second disruption roughly twelve
hours later.
The cause of the faults that hit the EAC cable between Hong Kong
and Taiwan is not yet known, but the damage happened at about the
same time the southern part of the island and China's southern
coast was being pummeled by one of the most powerful typhoons to
strike in recent memory. There were no earthquakes recorded by
Taiwan's Central Weather
Bureau at the time when the disruptions took place.
Pacnet expects to have the EAC undersea cable repaired by Aug.
20 or so, weather permitting, the notification said.
