Repair of Taiwan quake-damaged cables soon

Taipei -- Taiwan will next week start repairing earthquake-damaged undersea cables that have disrupted Internet and telephone services across Asia, the state-run Chunghwa Telecom said Thursday.

"Four cable ships left Japan, Singapore and the Philippines today," Chunghwa Telecom vice president Lin Jen-hung said at a press conference.

"They are expected to arrive next Tuesday and start repairing the undersea cables. The repair will take about two weeks," he said.

"From the time our service was interrupted until it is resumed, we will exempt our clients of fees," he said.

Lin said the service disruptions would cause a loss of 150 million Taiwan dollars (about $4.5 million) to the company.

A magnitude-6.7 undersea earthquake struck Taiwan's southern coast Tuesday, leaving two people dead and injuring at least 50.

The quake and its aftershocks damaged four of Chunghwa Telecom's six undersea cables, cutting off or slowing down not only Taiwan's - but also neighbouring countries' - voice, data and Internet connections with India, Europe and the US.

The telecommunications service in neighbouring countries was affected because a huge amount of it is re-routed by Taiwan's submarine optical cables.

Singapore telecommunications officials advised Internet users to expect slow traffic for at least a few days.

While thousands of home users and companies in the city-state were cut off from the Internet Wednesday, the problems began to ease later in the day when the telecommunications traffic was diverted to other cables unaffected by the quakes.