Asia hits telephone lines, Internet after attacks in U.S.

Asia hits telephone lines, Internet after attacks in U.S.

SINGAPORE (Reuters): Asians flooded phone lines to the United
States to try to get in touch with relatives after a series of
devastating terror attacks and millions of people flocked to
Internet news sites to track the dramatic events.

Telecoms companies in the region reported surges in the number
of calls and some difficulties in getting through but Internet
access was little affected despite the intense interest in the
airplane attacks in New York and Washington on Tuesday.

Singapore Telecommunications said on Wednesday that calls to
the United States jumped by more than 35 times within two hours
of the first attack on the World Trade Center.

Concerned Singaporeans made an estimated 200,000 calls from
fixed and mobile lines.

"I tried about four times and got through on the fourth time,"
said Mabel Phoon, who was trying to reach a friend in New York.
"The first three times, I just got an engaged tone or a message
from the network saying they're not able to connect."

State-run Korea Telecom, the nation's largest fixed-line
carrier, said traffic to the United States leapt 25 times but
that connections were hampered by the sheer volume.

"My husband tried hard last night to call his sister, whose
family lives in New Jersey," one woman said in Seoul. "He failed
over and over again and finally reached her in the morning."

China's dominant telcos declined to provide statistics on
calls but, judging by Internet activity overnight, the Chinese
were clearly riveted by the news.

Internet portal Sohu.com Inc, which lets users send short text
messages (SMS) to friends with cellphones, reported its highest
usage to date.

"SMS traffic is even higher than it was when Beijing won the
Olympics bid," spokeswoman Caroline Straathof said, referring to
the mass elation on July 13 when Beijing was named host of the
2008 games.

Chinese Internet portal Sina.com had a record 40 million page
views, or about five times normal traffic, in the 11 hours after
the attack.

Communications in the United States were placed under heavy
strain by millions of phone calls and heavy Internet use. The
United States is a major Internet node in a global network
connected via undersea cables and satellite links.

In Japan, top Web site Yahoo Japan and Nifty, the most popular
Web service provider, saw no disruption to sites or e-mail
traffic.

Web access providers in Singapore, South Korea and the
Philippines said their connections were not affected but that
some subscribers found it difficult to reach certain news sites.

"Most of the traffic is from Asia to the U.S. because the
content is in the U.S.," said Poon Keen Mun, network manager for
Singapore-based Pacific Internet.

"The bottleneck will be more at the end-portion on the Web
servers on the U.S. side, for example the CNN site. It has
nothing to do with the bandwidth."

Thai communications authorities described international call
traffic as "very congested" after the attacks.

India's monopoly overseas telecommunications provider VSNL
reported a similar story but said things were now back to normal,
while the Philippine Long Distance Co saw "a very significant
increase" in call traffic but said lines were not clogged.