Telecommunications giant Chunghwa Telecom Co yesterday held a ceremony to celebrate the completion of its first submarine cable system between Taiwan and China.
Telecommunications companies from both sides of the strait invested a total of NT$200 million (US$6.66 million) to construct the cable system that runs between Taiwan’s Kinmen County and China’s Xiamen City.
Chunghwa Telecom put in NT$100 million, while three major Chinese telecoms companies — China Telecom, China Unicom and China Mobile — provided the remaining funds.
The submarine system, which took 16 years to build, is the first of its kind and will make it easier to build similar projects, Minister of Transportation and Communications Mao Chi-kuo (毛治國) said at the celebrations.
The government holds the biggest stake in Chunghwa Telecom.
With regard to external telecommunications, cross-strait communications ranks in first place.
With telecommunications demand between the two sides growing rapidly, completion of the cross-strait cable system could not have been more timely, Chunghwa Telecom chairman Lu Shyue-ching (呂學錦) said.
The Kinmen-Xiamen submarine cable project was launched in 1996, after top-ranking officials from Taiwanese and Chinese telecommunications companies held a meeting about the project in Taiwan, Lu said.
The system consists of two cables, one of 11km that runs directly between Kinmen’s Lake Tzu and Xiamen’s Guanyin Mountain, and a 9.7km cable that runs between Kinmen’s Guningtou (古寧頭) and Xiamen’s Dadeng Island (大嶝島), Lu said.
The non-repeater submarine cable system has a bilateral transmission capacity of 90 Gigabits per second (Gbps), with Chunghwa Telecom allocating 90 Gbps bandwidth from the Taiwanese side and the three Chinese companies receiving 30 Gbps each.
Depending on demand, the bandwidth might be expanded in the future, Lu said.
He said the company is building three other cable systems in the region, with the aim of becoming a telecommunications leader in the Asia-Pacific region.
They are the Taiwan Strait Express, another cross-strait submarine cable; the South-East Asia Japan Cable System; and the Asia-Pacific Gateway, which is to link Taiwan, China, South Korea, Malaysia and Vietnam, Lu said.
The projects are expected to be completed by the end of 2014, he said.
A preclearance service to facilitate entry for people traveling to select airports in Japan would be available from Thursday next week to Feb. 25 at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, Taoyuan International Airport Corp (TIAC) said on Tuesday. The service was first made available to Taiwanese travelers throughout the winter vacation of 2024 and during the Lunar New Year holiday. In addition to flights to the Japanese cities of Hakodate, Asahikawa, Akita, Sendai, Niigata, Okayama, Takamatsu, Kumamoto and Kagoshima, the service would be available to travelers to Kobe and Oita. The service can be accessed by passengers of 15 flight routes operated by
Chinese spouse and influencer Guan Guan’s (關關) residency permit has been revoked for repeatedly posting pro-China videos that threaten national security, the National Immigration Agency confirmed today. Guan Guan has said many controversial statements in her videos posted to Douyin (抖音), including “the red flag will soon be painted all over Taiwan” and “Taiwan is an inseparable part of China,” and expressing hope for expedited reunification. The agency last year received multiple reports alleging that Guan Guan had advocated for armed reunification. After verifying the reports, the agency last month issued a notice requiring her to appear and explain her actions. Guan
GIVE AND TAKE: Blood demand continues to rise each year, while fewer young donors are available due to the nation’s falling birthrate, a doctor said Blood donors can redeem points earned from donations to obtain limited edition Formosan black bear travel mugs, the Kaohsiung Blood Center said yesterday, as it announced a goal of stocking 20,000 units of blood prior to the Lunar New Year. The last month of the lunar year is National Blood Donation Month, when local centers seek to stockpile blood for use during the Lunar New Year holiday. The blood demand in southern Taiwan — including Tainan and Kaohsiung, as well as Chiayi, Pingtung, Penghu and Taitung counties — is about 2,000 units per day, the center said. The donation campaign aims to boost
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) said a magnitude 4.9 earthquake that struck off the coast of eastern Taiwan yesterday was an independent event and part of a stress-adjustment process. The earthquake occurred at 4:47pm, with its epicenter at sea about 45.4km south of Yilan County Hall at a depth of 5.9km, the CWA said. The quake's intensity, which gauges the actual effects of a temblor, was highest in several townships in Yilan and neighboring Hualien County, where it measured 4 on Taiwan's seven-tier intensity scale, the CWA said. Lin Po-yu (林柏佑), a division chief at the CWA's Seismological Center, told a news conference
RSS