A Natural Experiment in Progress: Quake Cuts Off Much of Asia Internet

It should be -very- interesting to watch this unfold over th next couple of weeks. How will people and lightweight infrastructure adapt and innovate around this damaged trunk line? I hope IFTF's Virtual China will keep us up to speed, and Hanna Cho in South Korea will probably be reporting as well.

UPDATE: IFTF's Mike Love found an update on the Bloomberg site, a news service targeted at the financial industry. Apparently, the i-bankers are going bonkers...

Chunghwa said almost no calls could be made to Southeast Asia, causing disruption to companies including First State Investments in Singapore.

``I can't trade if I don't know the prices,'' said David Leong, who heads the Singapore trading desk at First State, which manages $15 billion in equities in Asia and emerging markets. ``I've put in limit orders to try to minimize the damage, but even then you need to have the basic information.''

Chunghwa said voice calls to the U.S. are down to 40 percent of normal capacity, while calls to China are down to 10 percent, and 11 percent for Japan. Hong Kong's PCCW Ltd. said it only had 50 percent of its telephone capacity in the region and Singapore Telecommunications Ltd., Southeast Asia's largest phone company, reported Internet traffic was hindered.

HSBC spokeswoman Vinh Tran in Hong Kong said there was no access for its online banking service in Taiwan, Hong Kong and China. Both the city's stock exchange and Securities and Futures Commission said operations were normal.

p.s. Thank god this wasn't another tsunami.

BREITBART.COM - Quake cuts off much of Asia Internet

Internet and phone services have been disrupted across much of Asia after an earthquake damaged undersea cables, leaving one of the world's most tech-savvy regions in a virtual blackout.

From frustrated traders seeking in vain for stock quotes to anxious newshounds accustomed to round-the-clock updates on world events, millions of people from China to Japan to Australia were believed to have been affected.

Comments

[Mike Love]

Here is an update from Bloomberg:

Link

[China Law Blog]

Our Shanghai office is without internet access, but Blackberry went live yesterday morning in Shanghai. We are communicating cell phone to cell phone and by blackberry. Problem is that group editing of a 23 page legal document on a blackberry just ain't gonna happen.

Good thing it's the holiday season.