Wednesday December 27, 12:34 PM
Asia quakes damage cables; Internet, banks
affectedADVERTISEMENT
SINGAPORE, Dec 27 (Reuters) - Telecommunications around Asia were
severely disrupted on Wednesday after earthquakes off Taiwan
damaged undersea cables, slowing Internet services and hindering
financial transactions,
Banks and businesses across the region reported problems with
communications, with telephone lines and Internet access cut or
slowing to a crawl.
South Korea's top fixed-line and broadband service provider, KT
Corp , said in a statement that six submarine cables were knocked
out by Tuesday night's earthquakes.
"Twenty-seven of our customers were hit, including banks and
churches," a KT spokesman said. "It is not known yet when we can
fully restore the services."
Taiwan's Chunghwa Telecom said two of four major undersea cables
out of Taiwan had been affected.
Voice circuits had been reduced to 40 per cent of capacity to the
United States, 11 per cent to Japan, 10 per cent to mainland China
and just 2 per cent to most parts of Southeast Asia.
Banks in Seoul said foreign exchange trading had been
affected.
"Trading of the Korean won has mostly halted due to the
communication problem," said a dealer at one domestic bank.
The main quake, measured by Taiwan's Central Weather Bureau at
magnitude 6.7 and at magnitude 7.1 by the U.S. Geological Survey,
struck off Taiwan's southern coast at 1226 GMT on Tuesday. Two
people were killed.
PCCW , Hong Kong's main fixed-line telecoms provider, said several
undersea cables it part-owned had been damaged. "Data transfer is
down by half," a spokeswoman said.
Some disruption was also reported in the Tokyo currency market, but
the EBS system through which much dollar/yen trading is conducted
appeared to be working, traders said.
KDDI Corp. , Japan's second-largest telecoms company, said
communications along submarine cables out of Japan went through
Taiwan before reaching Southeast Asian countries, which was leading
to disruption.
But KDDI said communications were unlikely to break down completely
since there were alternative lines.
Singapore Telecommunications , Southeast Asia's top phone company,
said some customers were suffering slow access to Internet pages
and other data.
But it said traffic was being diverted and repair work was in
progress, adding: "Our submarine cables linking to Europe and the
U.S. are not affected."
Singapore's second-largest telecoms firm, StarHub Ltd. , said its
customers were experiencing slower connection to some international
Web sites because of the cable problems.
"We are re-routing traffic to other cables," a StarHub spokesman
said.
