China's Internet connections threatened by fishing nets

China Telecom officials were quoted by the Shanghai Daily as saying that three incidents since February in which underwater cables off the coast of the port city were damaged by fishing nets could be repeated in the months ahead. The number of patrol boats assigned to cover the area has been increased since the incidents, but the newspaper said there is still no law against the use of anchored fishing nets and the Chinese government has no plans to ban them until 2006.

The newspaper also pointed out that the expanded patrol fleet will not be big enough to warn all fishing boats away from the cables during the height of the fishing season from March until May. In early February, a fishing boat accidentally damaged a main underwater cable for Internet connections between the United States and China. The mishap caused China's widest-ever interruption of Internet service. A month later, a cable between mainland China and Taiwan was cut in two places. Repair of the cables cost China Telecom hundreds of thousands of dollars. The nets of most fishing vessels in the East China Sea are anchored to the sea bottom, with the tides used to help trap the fish. But when ocean currents are strong the anchors can be pushed kilometres away from where they were first placed and, as result, can damage the underwater cables.

(dpa)