CHASING ‘SHUNXING-39’:
The coast guard was unable to board the ship believed to have cut a submarine cable on Friday, but said the vessel was bound for South Korea
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By Shelley Shan / Staff reporter
The Ministry of Digital Affairs plans to help fund Chunghwa Telecom in the construction of new international cable landing stations and backup servers as part of the government’s efforts to shore up the nation’s digital resilience, the agency said yesterday.
The announcement came after the nation’s largest telecom on Friday last week reported that one of its international cables installed off the nation’s northeast coast was damaged.
Chunghwa and the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) on Saturday said the cable was cut by the Shunxing-39 (順興39號), a Cameroon-registered, Hong Kong-owned freighter.
Photo: Taipei Times
The incident did not disrupt voice, data or corporate customer services as a backup system was activated on Friday, the ministry said on Monday.
Also on Monday, Chunghwa said it recruited a cable repair ship from overseas, and the broken cable could be fixed by the end of the month, weather permitting.
The ministry yesterday said it aims to lower the risks associated with broken submarine cables and their impact on the nation’s communications networks caused by introducing incentives for telecoms to build more cables and shared backup systems for multiple underwater lines.
To shore up the resilience of the country’s communications systems, the ministry said it has secured funding to subsidize Chunghwa in constructing new international cable landing stations and facilities to accommodate backup servers, which would help increase the number of international submarine cables.
Meanwhile, the ministry has also obtained funding to bolster the resilience of existing international submarine cable landing stations, it said.
“We are backing up important communications networks in the country using multiple heterogeneous communications systems, such as microwave and satellite communications systems,” it said.
When the cables connecting Taiwan proper and Lienchiang County (Matsu) were damaged in early 2023, the ministry approved Chunghwa’s plan to expand its bandwidth for a microwave communications network to 12 gigabits per second, it said.
In that incident, two cables between Taiwan and the Matsu Islands were disconnected on Feb. 2 and Feb. 8 that year.
Internet to the offshore county was cut off for more than 50 days before one of the cables was repaired on March 31, 2023.
The ministry said it would list the satellite systems that would be available to use when both submarine cables and microwave systems malfunction.
The SES medium-orbit satellite serves as the backhaul link for the base stations on Matsu’s Nangan Island (南竿島), while OneWeb’s low-orbit satellite system can ensure that government and military communications can continue, it said.
“We will also ensure owners of key communications infrastructure have cybersecurity protection plans,” it added.
The nation has about 10 international submarine cables, which are categorized as key infrastructure and regulated by the Ministry of Digital Affairs. Domestic submarine cables are regulated by the National Communications Commission.
The Shunxing-39 was supposed to sail to South Korea after it was briefly detained by the coast guard on Friday on suspicion of dragging its anchor over the international subsea cable.
The CGA said it has asked South Korean authorities for assistance in the investigation into the ship after rough seas prevented them from boarding the vessel near northern Taiwan.
Seven Chinese nationals were crewing the vessel, which a coast guard official confirmed was owned by Jie Yang Trading Ltd, a company registered in Hong Kong.
Institute for National Defense and Security Research fellow Su Tzu-yun (蘇紫雲) said the latest incident was part of “Beijing’s systematic action against Taiwan” and was designed to create unease among Taiwanese.
“If Taiwan’s undersea cables are completely cut off, its connections to the world are cut off,” he said.
Additional reporting by CNA and AFP
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