Taiwan suspects that Chinese ships cut the internet cables that fed into its outlying islands after some residents reported that they haven’t had internet for the past month.
The islanders in the meantime were forced to hook up to a limited internet via microwave radio transmission, a more mature technology, as backup. It means one could wait hours to send a text. Calls would drop, and videos were unwatchable.
China regularly sends warplanes and navy ships toward Taiwan as part of tactics to intimidate the island’s democratic government. Concerns about, and Taiwan's preparedness to withstand it, have increased since the war in Ukraine. Internet cables, which can be anywhere between 0.79 inches to 1.18 inches wide, are encased in steel armor in shallow waters where they’re more likely to run into ships. Despite the protection, cables can get cut quite easily by ships and their anchors, or fishing boats using steel nets.
Faced with unusual difficulties, Matsu residents came up with all sorts of ways to organize their lives.One couple planned to deal with the coming peak season by having one person stay in Taiwan to access their reservation system and passing the information on to the other via text messages. Wife Lin Hsian-wen extended her vacation in Taiwan during the off-season when she heard the internet back home wasn't working and is returning to Matsu later in the week.
Taiwan's Ministry of Digital Affairs publicly asked for bids from low-Earth orbit satellite operators to provide the internet in a backup plan, after seeing Russia's cyberattacks in the invasion of Ukraine, the head of the ministry, Audrey Tang, told The Washington Post last fall. Yet, the plan remains stalled as a law in Taiwan requires the providers to be at least 51% owned by a domestic shareholder.
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