Quake and Cables
The Taiwan earth quake really caused big trouble. I learned that our payment transactions from USA were all cancelled from Xoom, PayPal and Bank transfers. Yesterday, when we finally had all the funds needed, we decided to send payments over the counter and to my dismay, the banks were offline too and even Western Union! I never really thought the damage was this vast. I just thought it just affected Internet connection. It came to me that (alam naman talaga natin to dati pa..) these major industries were actually connected through online network. So I did a little research and here’s what I’ve read from the Business Standard:
“An earthquake off Taiwan last night, measuring 6.7-7.1 on the Richter scale, knocked out Internet links to India for 20-25 minutes and affected Reliance Communications’ FLAG and VSNL’s SEA-ME-WE-3 under-sea cable systems, even as telecommunications around Asia was severely disrupted, with Internet services slowing and financial transactions being hindered, particularly in the currency market. However, BPO and IT services across India remained largely unaffected.
The damage was contained to some extent since the disruption took place at a time when data and voice traffic had not peaked in Europe and the US, which accounted for a major part of their businesses. The other reason was that all Indian players had accounted for such natural disasters and built in two levels of redundancies.
These companies have coverage across the Pacific and the Atlantic and if one of these links snaps, the other one takes over seamlessly.
The FLAG cable links India, Thailand, Hong Kong, China, Korea and Japan. SEA-ME-WE 3 includes 39 landing points in 33 countries across four continents — from Western Europe to the Far East and Australia.
Other cables damaged in the quake included those of Asia-Pacific Cable Network, Asia Pacific Cable Network 2, Cable 2 Cable, China US Cable Network, and East Asia Cable.
South Korea’s top fixed-line and broadband service provider, KT Corp, said six submarine cables were knocked out by Tuesday night’s earthquakes. “Twenty-seven of our customers were hit, including banks and churches,” a KT spokesperson said. “It is not known yet when we can fully restore services.”
Wuuhaaaaaaaaa! Check that last line out! um… I don’t mean to freak you out. Click here to read more.
Just wondering though that through that article about BPOs (Business Process Outsourcing), Economy and Business networks, Philippines was never mentioned in a significant way.
Haaay Pilipinas, di man lang nila alam na apektado ka?
