HK Very Honest About Internet Disruption
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Asians face at least 2 more weeks of Internet disruption
By Donald Greenlees
Sunday, December 31, 2006
HONG KONG
The telecommunications regulator in Hong Kong said Sunday that the first of six cables damaged in an earthquake last week would not be restored until Jan. 16, and that work on the remaining cables would not be completed until the end of the month.
This means that internet users in some countries in the region, particularly Hong Kong and Taiwan, will continue to experience either slow access to the web or be unable to access sites.
The repair work has been hampered by bad weather and mechanical failure. One of two maintenance ships was forced to abandon the effort to repair damaged cables Saturday after suffering a "major fault" and sailing to Taiwan, the Office of the Telecommunications Authority in Hong Kong said.
"The repair of the ship is expected to take about a week," the authority said in a statement. "Therefore the repair of the cables has to be postponed."
Hong Kong's biggest telecommunications company, PCCW, initially lost half its internet capacity after the earthquake, which occurred off southern Taiwan, but has since been able to restore connections to international websites at very slow speeds.
International telephone services are almost back to normal across the region after telecommunications companies re-routed calls to satellites and functioning cables. Singapore Telecommunications, Southeast Asia's largest phone operator, said Sunday that voice and internet access was "back to normal," Bloomberg News reported.
The earthquake, which struck on Dec. 26 with a magnitude of 6..7, caused unprecedented disruption to regional communications. Six out of seven undersea telecommunications cables — carrying the vast majority of East Asia's data and voice traffic — were severed or damaged.
Telecommunications carriers and cable owners have been struggling to restore normal telecommunications ahead of the resumption of business activity on Jan. 2 after the New Year holiday. The major carriers have given priority to meeting contracted service obligations to corporate clients in major financial centers.
Still, the telecommunications industry has been shocked by the extent of the disruption. The telecommunications authority in Hong Kong had initially predicted that repair work could be completed within five to seven days.
"The five to seven days was an estimate based on past experience," said Au Man Ho, director general of the authority in an interview. "In the past, we have not experienced damage as extensive as this."
He added: "This is an unprecedented natural disaster."
He said regional telecommunication carriers would have to review plans for how they dealt with such a major collapse in capacity. -
Honesty is very Expensive in Singapore
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i thought singapore internet speed had recover fully liao?
give me a website you still feel slow/laggy. -
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i juz been able to connect this morning after almost 5 days of offline-ness. and youtube is still unwatchable.Originally posted by kingofbeholder:i thought singapore internet speed had recover fully liao?
give me a website you still feel slow/laggy. -
Youtube is unwatchable.
I got a lot of videos havent download yet. -
this website is lame lor, watch tvbs issit..Originally posted by kenn3th:
I confirm this website is laggy even before the disruption seen 2 month ago.
err..youtube maybe ba. i can't watch cartoon without slow buffering..(MOL 12000) -
neopets is laggy...
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yea i cant surf youtube
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this forum is still laggy.
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youtube load for me very fast
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Youtube loads extremely fast for me in the office.
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bittorrent cannot use...super slow
Play online games like gunbound (example) super lag. In fact most online mmorpg games are lagging like Hell. -
At least Singapore updates you on the situation.
In Indonesia, my ISP was just saying,
Sorry for the disruption because of the earthquake in Taiwan. Since the earthquake was beyond our control we will keep in touch with our partners to restablish connection. We hope this will be soon.