Submarine cables are multi-layer cables a few centimeters thick on the seabed, or buried one to three meters in shallow water. In busy shallow areas such as the Taiwan Strait, damage often comes from human activity—anchoring, fishing, dredging—and from natural wear, amplifier failure, earthquakes, landslides, and geopolitical risk. Human causes dominate cable damage in Taiwan.
Public security officials stress: the speed reduction activity will only affect 4G and 5G internet connections, but home wired internet connections, indoor Wi-Fi, and home telephone will not be affected. Financial and transportation systems (e.g., ATMs and traffic signals) should be operating normally. Payment mechanisms (e.g., tap-to-pay,) should not, in principle, be affected if they are using in-store wired connections; however, 4G and 5G internet payment mechanisms will be affected, as may online identity verification and real-time financial trading systems. …
That’s an interesting post. Thank you for sharing!
Do you have any on-the-ground reflections on the resiliency drill and how it affected systems you administrate? (How useful of an exercise was this? What changes could be made to make the next such exercise more useful?)
Oh I’m not Taiwanese lol, I just shared these posts cuz I have a general interest in the topic. Managing systems / research / communicating under limited connectivity is something I ruminate on regularly, but don’t really drill outside of experimenting a bit with offline knowledge bases such as kiwix or devdocs.
The paper mentions this site a few times, but it may be interesting to highlight it: 「台灣海纜動態地圖」 (“Live State of Taiwan Undersea Cables”)
The paper mentions:
I think the author is purposefully avoiding the additional context that many of the recent incidents of cable damage are widely believed to have been intentional—part of the so-called “grey zone” strategic efforts: 《台灣海底電纜首宗刑事案：中國籍船長判囚三年，庭上細節能釋除北京「灰色作戰」疑雲嗎？》 In the first criminal case involving Taiwan Undersea Cables, wherein a Chinese national ship captain has been sentenced to three years in prison, do details of the case dispel notions of Beijing involvement in “Grey Zone” strategic efforts? (July 2025)
As a result, there are now “resiliency drills” that reduce or disrupt telecommunications as a preparatory measure, though the scope seems to be somewhat limited—「2026城鎮韌性演習首納行動「斷網」 8/10中部、8/13北部 影響範圍一次看」 (“A Quick Look at the Affected Scope of Internet Disruption in the Upcoming 2026 Resiliency Drill”):
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Funnily enough I posted about a previous resiliency drill here: https://lobste.rs/s/ut3ncn/measuring_taiwan_s_mobile_slowdown_with. Thread unfortunately didn’t get any discussion :(
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That’s an interesting post. Thank you for sharing!
Do you have any on-the-ground reflections on the resiliency drill and how it affected systems you administrate? (How useful of an exercise was this? What changes could be made to make the next such exercise more useful?)
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Oh I’m not Taiwanese lol, I just shared these posts cuz I have a general interest in the topic. Managing systems / research / communicating under limited connectivity is something I ruminate on regularly, but don’t really drill outside of experimenting a bit with offline knowledge bases such as kiwix or devdocs.
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