ShekouDaily | September 3, 2017
On Saturday September 2nd, two internet service providers in the Philippines recently warned their customers that damage to undersea cables caused by recent typhoons near Hong Kong may slow down internet connections. The two ISPs, PLDT Inc. and Converge ICT Solutions Inc., said that repairs could take anywhere from three to six weeks.
“Due to the recent strong typhoon in Hong Kong, multiple international undersea cable links to the city were cut, causing slowdowns of internet connections to web and social media sites hosted there. This has affected the services of internet service providers (ISPs) of various Southeast Asian countries, including the Philippines,” PLDT said in a statement. According to Converge ICT Solutions, at least five undersea cables connecting the Philippines to Hong Kong were cut last Aug. 27, 2017.
Although they warn of slowdowns specifically between Hong Kong and the Philippines, many of these submarine cables provide links to various countries so there’s a chance this damage may affect our Internet here in China as well. The APCN2, for example, is a submarine telecommunications cable that provides a link for 9 places: China, Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan.