Two undersea cables connecting Lienchiang County (Matsu) with Taiwan proper were disrupted due to “natural deterioration” and could be repaired by next month, the Ministry of Digital Affairs said today.
The No. 3 Taiwan-Matsu cable was obstructed on Wednesday last week, and the No. 2 Taiwan-Matsu cable was disrupted this morning at 5am, Chunghwa Telecom said today.
The Ministry of Digital Affairs held a news conference at 11am to explain the situation.
Photo: Taipei Times
Chunghwa Telecom activated microwave communications within one hour of the second cable’s disruption at the ministry’s request, Deputy Minister of Digital Affairs Chiueh Her-ming (闕河鳴) said.
Communications should not be impacted, as the current microwave bandwidth is 12.6Gbps, which is higher than Matsu’s daily peak bandwidth of 9.5Gbps, Chiueh said.
Bandwidth would be prioritized for essential public services such as government agencies, banks and hospitals to ensure they are not disrupted, he said.
During the Lunar New Year holiday, people could still withdraw money from ATMs and online transactions would remain uninterrupted, he added.
The ministry has nine asynchronous satellite devices in Matsu that would serve as backup microwave channels for the Lienchiang County Government, Chiueh said.
No “suspicious” ships were detected when the cables went offline, he said.
Natural deterioration was the likely cause, but cases of ships damaging Taiwan's sea cables have risen in recent years, he added.
So far this year, Taiwan has reported four cases of disruptions in undersea cables, compared with only three both last year and in 2023, Chiueh said.
In 2023, the two undersea cables connecting Lienchiang were cut, disconnecting the Internet.
Authorities said two Chinese vessels caused the disruption, but that there was no evidence that Beijing deliberately tampered with the cables.
Taiwan has since worked to boost its communication resilience for emergencies including a conflict with China, such as a trial program to use low-Earth orbit satellites for remote areas including Lienchiang.
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
Taiwan yesterday denied Chinese allegations that its military was behind a cyberattack on a technology company in Guangzhou, after city authorities issued warrants for 20 suspects. The Guangzhou Municipal Public Security Bureau earlier yesterday issued warrants for 20 people it identified as members of the Information, Communications and Electronic Force Command (ICEFCOM). The bureau alleged they were behind a May 20 cyberattack targeting the backend system of a self-service facility at the company. “ICEFCOM, under Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party, directed the illegal attack,” the warrant says. The bureau placed a bounty of 10,000 yuan (US$1,392) on each of the 20 people named in
The High Court yesterday found a New Taipei City woman guilty of charges related to helping Beijing secure surrender agreements from military service members. Lee Huei-hsin (李慧馨) was sentenced to six years and eight months in prison for breaching the National Security Act (國家安全法), making illegal compacts with government employees and bribery, the court said. The verdict is final. Lee, the manager of a temple in the city’s Lujhou District (蘆洲), was accused of arranging for eight service members to make surrender pledges to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army in exchange for money, the court said. The pledges, which required them to provide identification
INDO-PACIFIC REGION: Royal Navy ships exercise the right of freedom of navigation, including in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, the UK’s Tony Radakin told a summit Freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific region is as important as it is in the English Channel, British Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Tony Radakin said at a summit in Singapore on Saturday. The remark came as the British Royal Navy’s flagship aircraft carrier, the HMS Prince of Wales, is on an eight-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific region as head of an international carrier strike group. “Upholding the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and with it, the principles of the freedom of navigation, in this part of the world matters to us just as it matters in the
RSS