Earthquake repairs slow net traffic

Etisalat has warned there may be problems with the internet as repairs continue following the recent Asian earthquake.

"Etisalat has been informed by the international service providers that repairs to damaged cables are presently underway and will be completed over a three-week period," the UAE operator said in a statement to IT Weekly this week.

"During this time, certain bandwidth-intensive, (non-http) applications such as online gaming and peer to peer applications will be moderately affected due to traffic prioritisation steps taken by etisalat," the operator added.

Etisalat confirmed that it had experienced temporary drops in internet service quality in the immediate aftermath of the undersea earthquake, which registered 7.1 on the Richter scale and which killed two people.

The quake, which occurred on December 26, resulted in massive damage to seven of the eight major undersea fiber-optic communication cables near southern Taiwan. Etisalat said it coped with the disaster by tapping into its contingency excess capacity and by making use of additional bandwidth allocated to it by other service providers.

The operator said its team worked round the clock to monitor and ensure traffic prioritisation and allocation of greater resources to critical internet based applications and services.

Damage to undersea cables disrupted a large part of the island's phone communications with other Asian countries and to the US.

Only one cable, SMW4, was unaffected by the quake, while others, including Flag Telecom, were partially impacted.