Telecom authorities in Hong Kong assumed emergency powers on Tuesday as firms faced internet disruption on the first day back to work after an earthquake damaged critical undersea data cables.
Telecom and internet service providers sent the city鈥檚 telecom authority OFTA hourly updates on service capacity as repair ships struggled to mend fibre optic cables severed in a 26 December quake off Taiwan.
The cables in the Taiwan Straits carry most of the region鈥檚 digital traffic. All but one of the seven submarine links, which carry international data in and out of Hong Kong, had snapped and internet capacity was down to 70%.
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鈥淲e put the emergency response system in place this morning as this was the first day that businesses and schools resumed operations after the Christmas and New Year holidays,鈥� said Ha Yung-kuen, OFTA鈥檚 acting director general of telecommunications.
Re-routed traffic
OFTA had received only 20 inquiries from internet users by mid-morning, suggesting that services had not been hit as hard as had been feared. By the close of business OFTA said internet traffic had moved smoothly and there had been no reports of serious 鈥渃ongestion鈥�.
鈥淭he situation is better than we expected,鈥� Ha said, adding that internet service providers had rerouted much of their traffic through land links with China and via satellite networks. Ha also said international phone calls, mobile services and fax lines were back to normal a week after the earthquake.
鈥淪ervice operators have said they will give priority to companies during business hours, so that means personal users will experience some delays,鈥� Ha said.
He added that smaller companies depending on bought-in Internet services rather than their own networks would suffer most. Ha urged surfers to avoid accessing large overseas-based web pages, to help conserve capacity.
Myth of invulnerability
The 7.1-magnitude earthquake sparked widespread communications disruption in Taiwan, China, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, South Korea and elsewhere. Knock-on problems occurred as far away as Australia.
One repair ship is in the damage zone working on Hong Kong鈥檚 cables, while another is in port receiving repairs for damage sustained in rough seas. Another four are on their way, Ha says.
鈥淚f we can get just one of the six broken cables back in service, Hong Kong鈥檚 internet capacity can be brought back to normal levels by the middle of January,鈥� he said. The rest would be repaired by the end of the month, he added.
The outage has led some commentators to point out that the internet, despite its distributed nature, can be vulnerable. Alan Mauldin, research director at TeleGeography Research in Washington DC, US, said the disruption may help end the myth that the internet, originally a military project, is designed to withstand catastrophes including nuclear war. He told Bloomberg the Taiwan quake was in 鈥渢he worst possible鈥� spot and highlighted the need to spread the cables out.
