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The following is an update by the Office of the Telecommunications Authority (OFTA) on the restoration of external telecommunications services as at noon today (December 30) subsequent to the damages to submarine cables caused by the earthquakes near Taiwan on December 26:
Latest Service Status:
a. Services for IDD and roaming calls to Taiwan and calls from Hong Kong to overseas using calling cards have resumed normal.
b. Services for IDD and roaming calls to South Korea are about 60% resumed.
c. Calls from overseas (except from Taiwan and Japan) to Hong Kong using calling cards are still very congested.
d. On data services, overall there has been some improvement in access to the
Internet. However, most users will continue to experience slow access.
e. Local telecommunications services and communications with Mainland
China and Macau are normal.
Repairing Status:
In addition to the two repair ships arrived at the scene on December 28, three are on the way.
After preliminary survey and assessment, the first part of repairing work of one submarine cable system is expected to be completed by January 9, 2007 if the environment and the weather permit. For the other damaged cables, survey and assessment are being arranged and repair is expected to be completed progressively by the end of January 2007.
Advice to the Public:
The public are advised not to make non-urgent calls for the time being to South Korea. Overseas callers calling Hong Kong are advised to use mobile phones or fixed-line phones instead of calling cards. But for callers from Taiwan and Japan, calling card services for calls to Hong Kong are normal.
Users of mobile phones should expect that there will be a longer delay for SMS' to and from Taiwan, Japan and South Korea in the approach to the New Year, when more users send and receive New Year greeting messages.
Internet users should, for the time being, minimize non-essential downloading of large files from overseas web sites and non-essential activities that demand large bandwidth over international connections.
Ends/Saturday, December 30, 2006
Issued at HKT 13:43
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