PACIFIC CABLE REPAIRS COULD TAKE WEEKS, TELCOS SAY

摘要

It could be several weeks before undersea cables are patched because the repair process is cumbersome, telco officials said. Telecom and Internet service providers scrambled Wed. to reroute traffic widely disrupted across the Asia-Pacific region after a 7.1 Richter scale earthquake damaged undersea cables in the region. Verizon Business counted damage to 8 undersea cables it either owns or leases, a spokeswoman said. Verizon has technicians on the ground in Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, and elsewhere working to fix terrestrial problems, the spokeswoman told us, but at this point most of the problems are under water. Repair crews must determine where, exactly, the damage occurred across the thousands of kilometers of cable and repair ships have to be deployed there. 揑t takes a while,?a Verizon official said. nnPeople in China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan and elsewhere awoke to find themselves without voice and data services. Among the hardest hit were major lines APCN2 and Sea-Me-We 3. APCN 2 was knocked out between Shantou, China, and Tanshui, Taiwan, and between Lantau, Hong Kong, and Chongming, China, regional telcos said. It wasn't clear by our deadline where Sea-Me-We 3, which links Asia and Europe, had been damaged. Firms that depend on the undersea cables immediately began steering traffic elsewhere, but alternate paths quickly became congested, they said. Verizon Business is using Sea-Me-We-4 for some rerouting, it said. That cable runs from Southern France to Singapore via the Mediterranean and is functioning properly, the Verizon Business spokeswoman said: 揥e're using parts of that to work around Taiwan.?/font>