The earthquake near Taiwan last night which snapped six underwater internet cables, seems to have left a large part of Asia, particularly the Northeast, struggling for an internet fix.
Those with internet censorship circumvention tools (proxies) already installed on their computers seem to be doing a little better, but for Hong Kong and mainland China, access is now mostly limited to local sites, but even those have been affected as well. China's largest internet portal website Sina.com's blog site shows almost no mention of the earthquake or the blackout, and RSS feeds slowed to a trickle around lunch time today. MSN and Yahoo! Messenger have been affected as well, although QQ and GTalk are operating normally. Phone calls to other continents, some bloggers are saying, don't connect.
A post from independent blogger Wang Pei shows that not only are Chinese netizens stuck inside the region, but Chinese websites and users seem to have disappeared off the map as well:
热烈祝贺大中华局域网今天测试
今天英国、日本网友无法连通国内网站，新浪、网易统统上不去。MSN上也见不到几个人。不知道其他国家网友能否访问。
一个可能的解释，大中华局域网正在测试。中国正在变成一个大网吧。
什么是大中华局域网？
One possible explanation is that the Greater China LAN is currently being tested. China is becoming one big internet bar.
“What is the ‘Greater China LAN'?” Wang asks, with a link to fellow indy blogger He Caitou's post on a partnership between China Netcom and American company Verisign which was announced last week, to install root server mirroring (.cn) in China.
Followed by two later updates:
遇到一样情况的网友同样来自：美国，新西兰。
我拥有300多联系人的MSN上，现在上线的只有5个人，而平常至少是这个数字的10倍。
From Hexun blogger zyx105106107 attempts to decipher the reason MSN can't be logged into on his internet service provider, China Netcom, mentioned in the post above above, which he links to the earthquake.
今日凌晨起，部分国外网站无法正常访问，其中包括雅虎在内的多家国际门户网站，而“MSN”、“雅虎通”等即时通讯工具也无法正常登陆。经证实，台湾地震导致中国网通国际互联网出口出现故障。
网通公司答复：目前技术人员已经确认，由于台湾地震导致中国网通国际互联网出口出现故障，国内用户无法登陆部门国外网站。
zyx105106107 also lists details of the six underwater cables affected:
1. 中美海缆于12月26日20：25 距离台湾枋山登陆站，9.7公里左右发生中断；
2. 亚欧三号海缆于12月26日20：25 距离台湾枋山登陆站 9.7公里左右发生中断；
3. 亚太二号海缆S7于12月27日00：06距离台湾淡水登陆站904公里左右发生中断；
4. 亚太二号海缆S3于12月27日02：00距离崇明登陆站2100公里左右（靠近台湾处）发生中断；
5. Flag光缆亚太系统于12月26日20:43在韩国到香港段中断；
6. Flag光缆亚欧段于12月27日04:56在香港到上海段中断。
10 comments
互联网比你我想象得更脆弱…
从昨天下午开始，我听到同学们说，国内网站无法访问。上了MSN，寥寥不过几人。日子过得昏天黑地，急忙点了电脑右下脚，发现是礼拜三，国内不是公共节假日。于是，我怀疑是不是国内的…
according to sohu, there are 16 underwater internet cables snapped.
The previous comment is from Wang Pei, quoted above, and says:
“Starting yesterday afternoon, I’ve heard some classmates say they couldn’t visit mainland sites. I went on MSN and only a few people were on. It’s like it were the dark ages, so I quickly went and clicked on the bottom right of the screen and saw it was Wednesday. On the mainland, it’s not a public holiday, so I wonder, has the mainland…”
The ending presumaby refers to the government’s plan to make .cn mirror versions of websites which is making many bloggers nervous and just took a step closer to completion last week. Link to more information in post above, and related analysis here.
This is all very techie and I can appreciate the importance, but does the average Chinese notice? What’s the status today? What’s the economic impact?
It’s 8 pm Thursday here now and the internet is exactly as it was yesterday: those few with proxies set up can access overseas websites, those without cannot. MSN and Yahoo! Messengers are still out service.
Someone from Singapore just left a message on my own blog saying they got the day off because their internet connections left them confined to Singaporean websites. Pretty much anyone in China whose job requires them to communicate online with people in Hong Kong or beyond is affected. Gmail is still working; I wonder if they’ve just signed up a few million new users…
Our Shanghai office is without internet access, but Blackberry went live yesterday morning in Shanghai. What is going on elsewhere in China?
Hey CLB.
Just put up a bit of a latest roundup on my own blog here.