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.
Palauan President Surangel Whipps Jr arrived in Taiwan last night to kick off his first visit to the country since beginning his second term earlier this year. After arriving at Taoyuan International Airport at around 6:30 pm, Whipps and his delegation were welcomed by Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍). Speaking to gathered media, the Palauan leader said he was excited and honored to be back in Taiwan on his first state visit to Taiwan since he was sworn in this January. Among those traveling with Whipps is Minister of State Gustav N. Aitaro, Public Infrastructure
President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday thanked Palau for its continued support of Taiwan's international participation, as Taipei was once again excluded from the World Health Assembly (WHA) currently taking place in Switzerland. "Palau has never stopped voicing support for Taiwan" in the UN General Assembly, the WHO and other UN-affiliated agencies, Lai said during a bilateral meeting with visiting Palau President Surangel Whipps Jr. "We have been profoundly touched by these endorsements," Lai said, praising the Pacific island nation's firm support as "courageous." Lai's remarks came as Taiwan was excluded for the ninth consecutive year from the WHA, which is being held in
RESOLUTIONS DEBATE: Taiwan’s allies said that UN and WHA resolutions cited by China and other nations ‘do not determine Taiwan’s participation in WHO activities’ A proposal to invite Taiwan to this year’s World Health Assembly (WHA) was rejected on Monday, resulting in Taipei’s absence from the annual meeting for a ninth consecutive year, although partners spoke up for Taiwan’s participation at the first day of the meeting. The first agenda item after the opening was a “two-on-two debate” on a proposal to invite Taiwan to participate at the WHA as an observer. Similar to previous years, two countries made statements in favor of the proposal, while two others expressed their opposition. Philippine Secretary of Health Teodoro Herbosa, president of the 78th WHA, accepted the WHA General Committee’s
At least three people died and more than a dozen were injured yesterday afternoon when a vehicle struck a group of pedestrians in New Taipei City’s Sansia District (三峽). The incident happened at about 4pm when a car rammed into pedestrians at an intersection near Bei Da Elementary School. Witnesses said the sedan, being driven at a high speed, ran a red light, knocking scooters out of the way and hitting students crossing the road before careening into a median near the intersection of Guocheng and Guoguang streets. The incident resulted in three deaths and 13 injuries, including the driver, a 78-year-old man
RSS