The first submarine cable directly linking Taiwan and China was completed on Friday, with the telecommunications operators who built it expecting it to improve cross-strait telecommunications quality and to cut communications costs.
The Taiwan Strait Express-1, which links Fuzhou in China’s Fujian Province with Tamsui in northern Taiwan, is 270km long.
Builders adopted state-of-the-art fiber-optic technology for the system and routed it in a way that avoids the faultline region, to minimize the risks of possible damage from natural disasters such as earthquakes.
In future, communications between Taiwan and China will no longer have to be rerouted via the Asia-Euro Under-sea Optical Cable, the China-US Cable Network or the Asia Pacific Cable Network 2.
Both sides of the Taiwan Strait witnessed the completion of the system through a video hookup.
Douglas Hsu (徐旭東), chairman of Taiwan’s Far EasTone, said that the completion of the system will make cross-strait communications faster and more stable, and create a win-win situation for operators and users.
Telecoms operators suggested this was just the beginning of further cooperation between Taiwan and China in the sector.
Taiwan Mobile chairman Richard Tsai (蔡明興) said the system will provide a faster and higher-quality service for Taiwanese businessmen operating in China.
“Taiwan Mobile is planning further cooperation with China’s telecommunications operators on cloud computing services to tap into the vast business opportunities in digital convergence,” Tsai said.
China Mobile chief executive officer Li Yue (李躍) said that the latest system will not only upgrade the quality of cross-strait communications, but will also save costs for operators.
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