Lienchiang County (Matsu) residents can now send pictures and text messages faster after Chunghwa Telecom expanded the bandwidth of its microwave signaling system.
Communication between Taiwan proper and the outlying islands was severely disrupted after Chinese ships broke two undersea cables on Feb. 2 and Feb. 8.
A microwave signaling system linking Taipei’s Yangmingshan (陽明山) with Dongyin Island (東引), originally designed to serve as a backup system, could only transmit telecommunications signals at 2.2 gigabits per second (Gbps), resulting in unstable voice communication and slow Internet speeds for residents since Feb. 8.
Photo courtesy of the National Communications Commission
The telecom has booked an international cable maintenance ship to repair the broken undersea cables on April 20.
Aside from restricting bandwidth access to users of voice communications and mobile Internet, the telecom was asked by the National Communications Commission (NCC) to expand the bandwidth of the microwave signaling system.
The system on Monday was capable of reliably transmitting signals at 3.8Gbps, one week earlier than scheduled.
The expanded bandwidth enabled the telecom to resume fixed telecommunication services as well as improve voice services and mobile 5G Internet, the telecom told a news conference on Yangmingshan yesterday.
However, the system still had interference due to inclement weather and a full tide, it said.
Chunghwa Telecom Network Technology Group president Alex Chien (簡志誠) said that the cable communication was transmitted at 8Gbps to 9Gbps at peak hours and 6Gbps to 7Gbps during other hours.
“With the microwave system’s transmission speed being accelerated to 3.8Gbps, people should have no trouble accessing the Internet at home and on their mobile phones most of the time,” Chien said. “However, multimedia-on-demand subscribers might report problems accessing content on the platform, as it would require more bandwidth.”
The telecom is aiming to further expand the bandwidth of the microwave system to 4.4Gbps in May, 6.1Gbps in September and 8.1Gbps by the end of this year, it said.
The broken undersea cables would be fixed by the end of next month, the telecom said.
The telecom would soon start building a fourth undersea cable connecting Taiwan proper and Lienchiang County, which is scheduled to be completed in 2025, it said.
NCC Deputy Chairman and spokesman Wong Po-tsung (翁柏宗) said tourists could make voice calls and send pictures via the Line app after the microwave system’s bandwidth was expanded.
Unlike international submarine cables in the Pacific Ocean that are mostly installed at a depth of more than 1,000m, domestic cables installed in the Taiwan Strait have an average depth of only about 100m, Wong said.
Cables in the Taiwan Strait are easily damaged by fishing boats, sand dredgers and cargo ships, he said.
Of the 75 cable damage incidents recorded in the past 10 years, 62 percent occurred at a depth of 50m, NCC data showed.
Lienchiang County officials told reporters via videoconference that 70 percent of bed-and-breakfast operators could now access the Internet thanks to the expanded bandwidth.
“We hope that Chunghwa Telecom can expand the bandwidth of the microwave signaling system to 10Gbps,” Lienchiang County Council Deputy Speaker Lin Chih-yang (林志揚) said. “In addition to repairing damaged cables, the central government should also consider connecting Matsu and China.”
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,