The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday said it had asked Internet service provider Chief Telecom Inc to review its backup power systems after a fire disrupted Internet services on Monday, adding that the company should compensate customers.
The fire started in a room at eASPNet Taiwan, a data center operator in Taipei’s Neihu District (內湖). Chief Telecom, a subsidiary of Chunghwa Telecom, is based in the same building and leases a floor to eASPNet.
While the blaze caused no damage at Chief Telecom, the fire department asked that the building’s power supply be switched off, which affected its operations.
As Chief’s business partners include the nation’s three major telecoms carriers, as well as some overseas, media reported that the incident may have affected millions of users and was likely the worst Internet disruption since the 921 Earthquake in 1999.
In a statement yesterday, Chief said all its services were back to normal by 1:50am yesterday.
The commission said it is conducting inspections at eASPNet and Chief Telecom.
“We have asked that both service operators reinforce their risk management mechanisms, re-evaluate backup power supply systems and routing systems, as well as increasing their emergency drills,” the commission said. “They are also required to submit their plans to restore the facilities, make improvements and compensate customers for losses caused by this incident.”
The fire also reportedly affected people’s access to the Internet portal Yahoo-Kimo, the online ticketing system of Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp, McDonald’s delivery line, as well as other organizations’ online payment systems.
Chief said it was still assessing the incident’s impact, adding that it would discuss compensation with eASPNet.
Taiwan Mobile and Far Eastone Telecommunications also said they were assessing the damage and looking into compensation.
Chunghwa Telecom said it was unaffected by the fire because it has its own machine room and cable systems. Despite Chief Telecom being a subsidiary, Chunghwa said the two companies have separate financial and operational systems.
According to the commission, telecoms carriers must compensate customers based on the terms listed in standard contracts.
Customers are entitiled to a 5 percent discount on their monthly fee if their service is disconnected for between two and six hours, rising to an 8 percent deduction if they are unable to use the service for six to eight hours.
Should a disconnection continue for 12 to 24 hours, customers are entitled to a 20 percent deduction in their monthly fee.
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not