Taiwan Quakes Disrupt Asian Internet

By the Betanews Staff | Published December 27, 2006, 11:19 AM

Two quakes measuring 6.7 and 7.1 on the Richter scale on Tuesday that struck off the coast of Taiwan damaged undersea cables carrying Internet traffic, causing slowdowns in Internet access throughout the Asian continent and wreaking havoc on the financial markets. Damage was bringing down data transfer by as much as half in some cases, and it could take weeks before service is fully restored.

Undersea cables that carry both voice and data run throughout the Pacific, many of which are routed through Taiwan. As of early morning Wednesday, only about 10 percent of international calls were completed. The worst of the disruptions seemed to be in Taiwan itself, where only half of the normal telecommunications capacity was available after two out of the four lines were cut.

Comments

At least China won't be putting as many dissidents in jail because Yahoo isn't there to help them.

Score: 0

|

here i m

Score: 0

|

8 Undersea Cables have been killed.

Score: 0

|

Bali, Indonesia, Friday Morning 10am, still huge problems to access the www and for some reasons but as actually usual, Google is complete 'dead' they still can't manage to give reliable services to Asia, that said only the mobile gmail works fine in general. Betanews as usual flashing fast on my screen even with the Taiwan Cable problems! Compliments guys!

Score: 0

|

Im living in Asian. And now I use a proxy from Kawai to connect to outside of my country. :((

Score: 0

|

Data transfer is down by more than half. From here in mainland China, most foreign sites are unreachable. Microsoft, Yahoo, MSN, etc.
Some, like this are reachable but extremely slow.

If it will be weeks to repair, what will WalMart and its ilk do about orders, payment, shipping? Ha!

Did anyone explain the purpose of routers and diverse paths to anyone in charge?

"Hey Fred, let's just put all our cable together, much cheaper that way. And of course we will route all traffic down that one path."

Score: 0

|

Man, that's bad. How can I help?

Score: 0

|

Suddenly, I received so few spam messages yesterday & today.

Score: 0

|

Maybe we'll see a small drop in spam...

Score: 0

|

Only a very small drop, as 95% of spam originates in the glorious US of A...

Score: 0

|

A lot of spam I get comes from the Eastern part of Europe and mostly Asia. A small percentage of that is actually coming from North American or European ip's. :)

Score: 0

|

It might greatly depend on what lists your address has ended up on. I get very little spam...even on my "for spam registration" accounts. Perhaps because I have always been careful on message boards.

Score: 0

|

Your simply wrong..

http://www.spamhaus.org/statistics/countries.lasso

If the US sorted out their spammers, the world spam would drop by a HUGE amount..

Score: 0

|

I am in Hong Kong. I have to use Proxy Server to go here.

Score: 0

|

== PRELIMINARY EARTHQUAKE REPORT ==

Region: TAIWAN
Geographic coordinates: 22.023N, 120.538E
Magnitude: 7.0 Mw
Depth: 10 km
Universal Time (UTC): 26 Dec 2006 12:34:14
Time near the Epicenter: 26 Dec 2006 20:34:14
Local time in your area: 26 Dec 2006 12:34:14

Location with respect to nearby cities:
69 km (43 miles) SSE (158 degrees) of Kao-hsiung, Taiwan
101 km (63 miles) SW (220 degrees) of T'ai-tung, Taiwan
115 km (71 miles) SSE (164 degrees) of T'ai-nan, Taiwan
825 km (512 miles) N (357 degrees) of MANILA, Philippines

== PRELIMINARY EARTHQUAKE REPORT ==

***This event supersedes event AT00000610.

Region: TAIWAN REGION
Geographic coordinates: 21.813N, 120.529E
Magnitude: 7.1 Mb
Depth: 10 km
Universal Time (UTC): 26 Dec 2006 12:26:21
Time near the Epicenter: 26 Dec 2006 20:26:21
Local time in your area: 26 Dec 2006 12:26:21

Location with respect to nearby cities:
91 km (57 miles) SSE (164 degrees) of Kao-hsiung, Taiwan 120 km (75 miles) SSW (213 degrees) of T'ai-tung, Taiwan
137 km (85 miles) SSE (167 degrees) of T'ai-nan, Taiwan
802 km (498 miles) N (357 degrees) of MANILA, Philippines

Score: 0

|

so i guess nobody from Taiwan will be posting here for a while .... :P

Score: 0

|

Seriously affected...

Score: 0

|

Before it can tackle Windows, Chrome must leave Safari in the dust

It's a little browser with dreams of becoming a bigger operating system some day. But while it's chasing Microsoft's dreams, Chrome's tail is being chased by Apple.

Silverlight 3 goes live on Microsoft's servers

Microsoft's answer to Adobe's Flash is (unofficially) here, with prospects of higher-speed, higher-resolution video and for the first time, 3D.

Best Buy-brand TVs to get TiVo

A new alliance will place the retailer's own brand alongide the manufacturers, and could also lead to future partnerships on services.

Three Android phones on the way from T-Mobile in 2009

T-Mobile's myTouch 3G, launched Wednesday, will be followed by two more Android phones later this year, but neither of them will be HTC's Hero.

LTE still lacks a voice

The 4G Wireless standard that Verizon hopes to show off before this year is out is still at a loss for (spoken) words.

T-Mobile's strategy to combat Apple's iPhone with Android

With a trio of Android phones now in the pipeline for 2009, T-Mobile hopes to break the iPhone's emerging stranglehold.

EC's Reding: Government should act as broker for media downloads

If Internet media services don't step up and build an attractive way for users to start paying for downloads, a commissioner says, government may do the job instead.

Sony TVs get Netflix, still no PS3

Though it's coming in behind LG, Samsung, and Microsoft, Sony will begin to offer Netflix streaming, too.

Google Chrome OS: Too little, too early

Carmi Levy: Wide Angle Zoom Don't start the revolution just yet, says Carmi, who isn't so certain Chrome OS will be the "Windows Killer."

GAO pen test brings the hammer down on federal rent-a-cops

But are the computers to blame for the contract-guard fiasco at FPS?

What's Next: Chrome OS will have at least some friends in high places

Also: South Korea takes another round of DDoS abuse, and Neelie Kroes and Steve Ballmer may shake hands before she exits stage left.

Data sharing among online advertisers: Is sanity in sight?

Lockdown with Angela Gunn In the middle of a 15-page plea not to get regulated, a spark of smart thinking.

PST Recovery Software 12.0

July 9 - 11:34 PM ET

Unistal Data Recovery 12.08.06

July 9 - 11:09 PM ET

BKF Repair 3.0

July 9 - 10:54 PM ET

Vuze for Windows 4.2.0.4

July 9 - 6:26 PM ET

UltraVNC 1.0.6.4

July 9 - 6:05 PM ET

WildBit Viewer 5.5 Beta 3.0

July 9 - 5:44 PM ET