The capacity of the microwave communication backup system connecting Taiwan proper and Lienchiang County has been expanded to 10.6 gigabits per second (Gbps), with the redundancy rate exceeding 100 percent, the National Communications Commission (NCC) said yesterday.
The government has been working with Chunghwa Telecom to expand the system’s capacity, as two submarine cables connecting Taiwan proper and the outlying county have been repeatedly damaged by Chinese fishing boats and dredgers.
In February, the two cables were damaged by a Chinese fishing boat and a container ship, disrupting telecommunication services and creating a national security crisis.
Photo: CNA
Before the cables were repaired, Chunghwa Telecom in March upgraded the microwave communication backup system from 2.2Gbps to 3.8Gbps.
Normal communications between Taiwan and the county were not resumed until March 21 after Chunghwa Telecom had one of the broken cables fixed.
The NCC yesterday morning arranged a tour to Yangmingshan (陽明山) in Taipei for reporters to see one of the three microwave transmission stations on mountains in the north of Taiwan proper.
Lienchiang also has three microwave transmission stations, it said.
The backup system would be activated if telecommunications are disrupted because of damaged submarine cables, said Lin San-yen (林學彥), director of Chunghwa Telecom’s fixed-communications maintenance and operations department.
The system’s capacity was increased to 5.5Gbps in May, 6.6Gbps in October and 10.6 this month, with the redundancy rate expanding from 42.2 percent to 103.28 percent, Lin said.
Telephone and Internet usage in Lienchiang County reached 10.27Gbps in peak hours, he said.
“The increase in the redundancy rate means that not only can the system support the communication of police, firefighters and other providers of essential services, but also allow people access the Internet and audiovisual services at the same time,” he said.
The telecom said it is seeking good locations to build fourth and fifth microwave communications stations to further expand the backup system’s capacity.
Separately, the NCC is aiming to further reduce phone scams by blocking messages sent by certain numbers, NCC Vice Chairman and spokesman Wong Po-tsung (翁柏宗) said.
The commission worked with the nation’s major telecoms to launch in May a protocol that blocks phone calls on landlines from numbers beginning with 886 0 to 886 8. By October, calls on landlines and mobile phones from numbers beginning with 886 9 were also blocked with people who answered hearing a warning that the call could be a scam.
With the latest upgrade, people would hear a scam warning whenever they receive a phone call beginning with 886.
“We have succeeded in blocking suspicious phone calls and warning people about potential scam calls on landlines and mobile phones, so committing fraud over the phone should be a dead end for scammers by now,” Wong said.
“However, we have discovered that scammers are now committing fraud by using a modem pool to massively distribute text messages,” he said.
For messages sent from overseas, telecoms are now blocking texts from numbers beginning with 886, Wong said.
Messages would be blocked based on keywords and individuals who appear to be distributors of mass text messages would be monitored, he said.
“For text messages sent from within Taiwan, we are working with telecoms to closely monitor individuals who tend to send a large number of text messages in a single day, aside from blocking messages based on keywords,” Wong said. “We would first send them a ‘caring message’ and temporarily suspend their access to the SMS service if the number of messages they send exceeds the daily limit, but they can continue to access voice and data services.”
In contracts with SMS platform operators, telecoms must state that operators should know their customers and pay penalties if messages sent via their platforms are involved in scams.
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