5Mar 07

Marketing an earthquake

Posted by Renai LeMay @ 13:42 0 comments

How did your business fare when massive earthquakes wreaked havoc with telecommunications cables off the coast of Taiwan last Boxing Day?

Yes, it was a public holiday in Australia. But the cables took some time to repair, and disrupted network access around the whole Asian region. According to the Office of the Telecommunications Authority in Hong Kong, 90 percent of the telecommunications capacity in the region was knocked offline.

I haven't heard many horror stories from local businesses affected by the quake, but recent conversations with telco executives suggest the shock could have unnerved the telecommunications sector a little.

The local heads of two international telcos have recently taken pains to assure me -- without prompting -- that their customers came through the Boxing Day quake unscathed.

Now when telcos start volunteering information like this, it always makes me suspicious -- it's almost as if they've got something to hide.

It's not that I don't believe sentiments like this -- it's just that I suspect it may not be the whole truth. Sure, network links may stay up -- but was latency or bandwidth affected?

It's these little nitty-gritty details which make up the more painful clauses in service level agreements, after all.

Post your Asian earthquake experiences below this article or drop me a line directly at renai.lemay@zdnet.com.au.