Shark blamed for China's Net problems By: Linda Harrison in New York Posted: 09/02/2001 at 17:53 GMT

Millions of Chinese surfers got an even more restricted Internet today after an undersea cable was severed.

The cable links Shanghai to the west coast of the US, and has had a knock-on effect on other parts of Asia-Pacific, with Hong Kong and Singapore suffering slower Net connections. Taiwan's state phone company, Chunghwa Telecom, also reported that a broken cable was stopping ISPs connecting to overseas servers - although it was not immediately known if it was the same cable.

An official at China Telecom told Reuters the cable would take up to 23 days to repair.

Web users in China's major cities said they were unable to access many overseas sites, although they were able to log onto domestic ones - which must be music to the ears of the country's Net-censorship crazed leaders. Phone companies are understood to be trying to divert traffic through satellites.

What caused the break, which hit the cable at 8am just off the coast of Japan (7pm EST Thursday), remains a mystery.

"All this talk about the Information Revolution - it can all be brought to its knees by a shark," speculated Steve Yap, a representative for Internet research firm Iamasia in Hong Kong. There were also reports on Chinese portal sina.com.cn that a careless fisherman may have been to blame. ®

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/16798.html

-- Doris (nocents@bellsouth.net), February 10, 2001

Answers

Ah so!

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-- Squirrel Hunter (nuts@upina.cellrelaytower), February 10, 2001.

We had "land sharks". Now we have "web sharks".

-- K, (infosurf@yahoo.com), February 11, 2001.

Asian data cable still out of action Wednesday, February 14, 2001, 15:44 By BARRY PARK, FAIRFAX IT Internet users in Asia are still coping with Internet bottlenecks after an undersea data cable failed late last week.

Bloomberg reported today that a cable repair ship owned by Japanese telecommunications company DDI was still attempting to find the source of the problem which hit last Thursday.

The 80Gbps link is part of the 30,000km fibre optic ChinaUS Cable Network, owned by a consortium of international telecommunications carriers including China Telecom, AT&T, Teleglobe USA, MCI WorldCom and Sprint.

The cable links China, Japan and Taiwan with the west coast of the United States. It was commissioned early last year.

The problem is believed to be related to either a cable bend or cut.

Australian telco Telstra was forced to reroute part of its voice and data network last week to cope with access problems to the region.

Australia's Internet access was cut off from the rest of the world late last year when a highspeed voice and data cable was snared and severed in half about 70km off the coast of Singapore.

It is believed a sand dredger working in the region was responsible for the cut, which took more than a week to locate and repair.

http://www.it.fairfax.com.au/breaking/20010214/A22132-2001Feb14.html

-- Doris (nocents@bellsouth.net), February 15, 2001.