Internet and telephone services were disrupted in most of Asia after a quake measuring 7.1 on the Richter scale struck Taiwan on Tuesday.
Nivedita Mookerji & Priti Bajaj
NEW DELHI: Internet and telephone services were disrupted in most of Asia after a quake measuring 7.1 on the Richter scale struck Taiwan on Tuesday night, affecting six undersea fibre-optic cables.
While communication services in several countries, including India, China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Malaysia, and Hong Kong were impaired, Singapore's facilities took the worst hit. Many of Singapore's links with the world have been severed, an industry source said.
The source said efforts are on to set things back in order, but the damage caused to the cables of Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd (VSNL), SingTel, Falcon, and SMW-3, among others, would take time to repair, up to a week in some cases.
VSNL's Tata Indicom Cable (TIC) is Singapore's first fully Indian-owned undersea fibre-optic cable. The 3,175km cable connects Singapore's Changi to Chennai.
Till services are restored, net surfing will be slow and erratic for both broadband and dial-up connections. Sources said that with international telephone calls also affected, the priority of service providers would be voice rather than data.
"Due to geographic problems, the undersea cable was disturbed towards the Pacific side," said Rajesh Chhariya, president of the Internet Service Providers Association of India. It is believed that the Atlantic side may also face problems due to traffic being shifted there.
Bharti, VSNL, BSNL, MTNL, and Sify were among the broadband and internet service providers whose services were affected.
There are nine million internet subscribers in India, two million of them broadband users.
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