RETN adds sixth Taiwan subsea route as cable faults push operators toward diversity

RETN adds sixth Taiwan subsea route as cable faults push operators toward diversity

Senior Content and Insights Manager

The new Taipei-Hong Kong route, announced on 28 September, means RETN now runs four physically diverse subsea routes between Taipei and Hong Kong and two between Taipei and Tokyo.

The company said the expansion responds to recurring subsea cable faults around Taiwan and rising demand for data-intensive workloads, including AI.

According to RETN, the six routes are engineered to avoid single points of failure. Rather than converging on one carrier hotel, they terminate in multiple geographically separate data centres and use different landing points, terrestrial corridors and equipment vendors. The aim is to stop a fault in one corridor or facility from taking down all of a customer’s international traffic.

RETN noted that recent disruptions across Asia, particularly around Taiwan, have shown how a single fault, or several in the same corridor, can quickly cause congestion, higher latency and packet loss on alternative long-haul routes.

Pressure on Taiwan’s links

Taiwan’s international connectivity has come under growing scrutiny. Since 2023, there have been at least 11 cases of subsea cable breakdowns around Taiwan, although some were later ruled as accidents or due to the old age of the equipment. The island currently has 10 domestic and 15 international undersea cables.

Operators and government are adding redundancy. On 18 September, Premier Cho Jung-tai launched a new Taiwan-Matsu subsea cable, describing it as part of the government’s “preemptive preparations” to bolster communications resilience. Chunghwa Telecom has also invested in satellite firm Astranis to build a dedicated backup system for the island.

Four routes as a minimum

Oswald Huang, managing director of RETN for the Taiwan market, said recent cable incidents had “reinforced our view that network operators should plan for at least four independent routes per major geography, and preferably five or more, including terrestrial alternatives.”

He added that the company plans to interconnect with more local data centres in future, in support of Taiwan’s ‘Smart Technology Island’ vision.

“These investments give customers more connectivity options and greater route diversity, while reinforcing our long-term commitment to Taiwan and the wider Asia-Pacific market,” Huang said.

RETN pointed to its response to the 2024 Red Sea cable crisis as evidence for the approach. During that period, the operator combined diverse terrestrial and subsea paths across different landing points, corridors and suppliers. It rerouted around 60-70% of affected traffic via TRANSKZ , its terrestrial system linking Europe and Asia.

RETN has previously argued that the impact of the Red Sea cuts was underestimated , and has called for operators to diversify routes to avoid single points of failure.

The operator already works with Chief Telecom in Taiwan, and offers remote access to Japan’s JPNAP exchange from markets including Taiwan.

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Senior Content and Insights Manager

Infrastructure and Networks