TAIPEI, Dec 29 (AP): Asian telecom companies said Friday they will not invest more in backup lines to protect against disasters like the recent earthquake that snarled telephone and Internet service across Asia, and as far as the United States (US).
The quake, which damaged undersea cables off Taiwan Tuesday, was so rare that there is no need to spend money on extra lines, said Wu Chih-ming, a senior official at Chunghwa Telecom Company, Taiwan's biggest telecommunications company.
Taiwan's Central Weather Bureau measured the quake at magnitude 6.7 while the US Geological Survey put it at 7.1.
"We won't consider laying more backup cables for now because such an incident might not happen in another 100 years", Wu said. Companies from Japan to Singapore Friday were still scrambling to fully restore service. Since it will take weeks to repair the cables off Taiwan, companies were rerouting traffic through satellites and cables that were not damaged.