Internet repairs hit underwater snags

BEIJING: -- Internet users in Asia will have to put up with service disruptions and sluggishness for some time to come as repairs to undersea telecommunications cables damaged in an earthquake three weeks ago make little progress.

The Shanghai Daily newspaper reported Tuesday that the depth of the cables, poor equipment and weather are holding up the work.

John Walters - general manager of Global Marine, which has dispatched two ships to help in the repair work - told the daily that because the cables lie 4,000 metres below sea level, neither robots or electrical technology could be used to fix the cables.

Winds at the Bashi Channel south of Taiwan, where some of the work is being carried out, have generated waves 10 to 12 metres high, he added.

In all, six ships have been dispatched to carry out the repairs, and Walters said workers had to use a 19th-century technique to find the cables, which are about 21 centimetres in diameter.

The companies are dredging the ocean floor for the lines, which, once located, are brought to the surface for repair. The poor weather has made the work difficult.

Four to six cables that carry signals to the United States and Europe were damaged in the December 26 quake. So far, none have been fully repaired, Walters told the Daily.

China Telecom reported that 70 per cent of its internet service has been restored through alternative routes. Experts said, however, that satellite links, for example, are slow and expensive and, in comparison to cables, unstable.

The Internet Traffic Report has said that the speed of internet service in Asia has been substantially slower than the world average since the December 26 earthquake off southern Taiwan, which killed two people and hurt 48.

The magnitude-6.7 quake and its aftershocks have caused extensive disruptions in internet service across the continent, leading to complaints, such as in China, that foreign websites are often slow to come up and e-mail services often don't work or e-mails sent are lost.

Taiwan's state-run Chunghwa Telecom Co had said earlier this month that it expected the repairs to be completed by the end of January.

--DPA 2007-01-16

They are nuclear armed, are prepared to dominate the world, can control world economies but they can't beat Mother Nature.