NWT timely resumed IDD and Internet Services
A strong earthquake occurred in southern Taiwan on 26 December 2006 night, caused severe damages to six submarine cables off Taiwan, and seriously affected the international telecommunications of Asia. Hong Kong's IDD service and Internet connectivity, especially those connecting to the US, Taiwan, Korea and Japan, experienced acute congestions.
In light of such a severe interruption in Hong Kong's international connectivity, New World Telecommunications Limited ("NWT") immediately established a contingency unit on that day and proactively contacted the major global carriers, which have bilateral agreements with NWT, to arrange for re-routing the traffic of the international voice and data transmission via other submarine cables in service and continental cables. On as soon as 28 Dec, IDD service and 80% of the Internet connection were successfully resumed. Thanks to the effort of both NWT's staff and business partners over the last week, IDD services have been fully recovered whilst 95% of the Internet connection has been resumed.
York Mok, Chief Operating Officer of NWT, said, "NWT has established bilateral partnerships with up to 180 global incumbents and major carriers. Although the incident happened this time is catastrophic and unprecedented, under the well-established bilateral partnerships and private peering agreements with different carriers, we were able, on one hand, to re-route the traffic of the international voice and data transmission, via other cables in service; on the other hand, to dynamically allocate more than 120% extra bandwidth for the use of our customers. This enabled us to restore our IDD service within a short period of time. Right after that, the access to the Internet was progressively recovered. Meanwhile, business customers of IPLC, VPN and data center services were satisfied with the quick service recovery."
According to Wilfred Kwan, Asia Netcom's President & Chief Technology Officer, "Asia Netcom has worked closely with NWT over the years. With this incident, we came together in sharing the same vision of resuming international telecommunications services as soon as possible with minimal impact to businesses in the region. We are glad to support NWT with quick restoration by providing them with international capacity for voice and data transmission."
Mok continued, "as the damaged submarine cables are now under repair, the traffic loading of those cables in service is expected to remain high which in turn leads to occasional slow access to the Internet. I would like to thank all the customers for their patience and understanding about this incidence. We are grateful to have received satisfaction and appreciation from business and residential customers. I would also like to extend my heartfelt gratitude to all the colleagues and global partners who have given their help and support during this event. We are committed to continuing our efforts in reviewing and developing local and international telecom connectivity technologies and services, in the view of delivering premium IP and telecom services to our customers."
NWT's Submarine Cables Network:
Restoring
:: APCN (Asia Pacific Cable Network)
:: APCN-2 (Asia Pacific Cable Network 2)
:: FLAG-FNAL (FLAG North-Asia Loop)
:: SMW3 (Sea-Me-We3)
:: China-US
In service
:: EAC
:: Japan-US
:: PC-1 (Pacific Crossing)
: TPC-5 (Trans-Pacific Cable 5)