Chunghwa Telecom Co, the nation's biggest phone company, said yesterday that it had restored voice services to the US, Canada and China by rerouting connections after earthquakes on Tuesday damaged two undersea cables.
Voice services to Hong Kong and Singapore were expected to be partially restored soon as the company completes agreements on rerouting the connections, Chunghwa vice president Leng Tai-feng (冷台芬) said by telephone last night.
Chunghwa Telecom said it activated its backup system and was relying on two remaining undersea cables. But it would take at least two to three weeks to restore the damaged cables and restore normal data services, the company said.
Links to the US, Japan, China and Southeast Asia were damaged by the quakes on Tuesday night, and millions of Internet and telephone connections across Asia were severely disrupted or slowed yesterday. Banks and businesses across the region also reported problems with communications.
HSBC customers, for instance, were unable to access online banking services in Taiwan, Hong Kong and China, said Vinh Tran, a company spokeswoman in Hong Kong.
Securities traders in Hong Kong and Singapore were unable to obtain prices and complete orders after networks linking financial companies were disrupted.
Dealers said, however, that because it is around Christmas, the impact would be less serious.
Chunghwa Telecom estimates that about 30 percent of its users of overseas data transmission have been affected, with those in Southeast Asia suffering most.
Chunghwa earlier yesterday said that telephone calls to the US were down to 40 percent of normal capacity, while calls to China were down to 10 percent and 11 percent for Japan.
It promised to compensate clients by charging lower fees. It also said it had sought help from other undersea cable suppliers and telecom operators to improve its services.
"Data is more difficult to restore because it is high speed," Leng said.
Primary cables were being repaired by another company, she added.
Taiwan's undersea communications cable system consists of seven lines extending from the northern and southern points of the island. The quake damaged the two southern lines.
Chunghwa said the damaged portions of the cables would be pulled to the surface and repaired aboard a ship.
Damaged cables include the APCN2 cable and Sea-Me-We3 cables, Leng said. Eight STM-1 cables from Okinawa and 4 STM-1 cables from Shanghai are acting as backup, Chunghwa said. The company may also use the ST-1 satellite in the meantime.
US President Donald Trump yesterday announced sweeping "reciprocal tariffs" on US trading partners, including a 32 percent tax on goods from Taiwan that is set to take effect on Wednesday. At a Rose Garden event, Trump declared a 10 percent baseline tax on imports from all countries, with the White House saying it would take effect on Saturday. Countries with larger trade surpluses with the US would face higher duties beginning on Wednesday, including Taiwan (32 percent), China (34 percent), Japan (24 percent), South Korea (25 percent), Vietnam (46 percent) and Thailand (36 percent). Canada and Mexico, the two largest US trading
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
RSS