Repairs completed on Taiwan-Matsu undersea cable: Telecom provider

Taipei, March 2 (CNA) A submarine cable connecting Taiwan's main island and its outlying Matsu islands that disconnected in January has been fully repaired, according to the telecom provider which operates the cable.

The repairs on the Taiwan-Matsu No. 3 fiber-optic cable that broke down on Jan. 15 were completed in the early hours of Sunday, Chunghwa Telecom said in a news release.

Fiber optic telecommunications on that line between Taiwan proper and the Matsu islands -- officially called Lienchiang County -- have already resumed, the partially state-owned company said.

At the end of February, an "international underseas cable repair vessel" arrived in Taiwan to fix the broken telecom link, but the ship was forced to return to harbor frequently due to rough waters in the Taiwan Strait caused by the winter northeasterly monsoon.

While the Taiwan-Matsu No. 3 fiber-optic cable broke in January, "telecommunications between Taiwan and Matsu were unaffected," because traffic was rerouted through "other submarine cables and via microwave transmissions," Chunghwa Telecom said.

On Jan. 22, the Ministry of Digital Affairs (MODA) attributed the damage of that cable and another one linking Taiwan and Matsu to "natural deterioration."

The spate of undersea cable issues in waters around Taiwan in recent months has prompted speculation that China may be engaging in "gray zone" operations targeting Taiwan's telecommunications systems.

Most recently, an undersea cable connecting Taiwan's main island and its offshore Penghu County was severed on Feb. 25.

The Chinese crew of a Togolese-registered vessel that had been lingering near the cable's disconnection point around the time of the incident were detained by Taiwan's coast guard officers and are currently under investigation by prosecutors in Tainan, southern Taiwan.