Overview
- Taiwan limited smartphone data speeds for 30 minutes on Monday, Aug. 10, in a central-region Han Kuang drill held in Taichung that included air-raid sirens and ordered civilian evacuation to underground areas.
- Local broadcasters and reporters in Taichung said mobile internet became unstable and that LINE messages and photos could not be sent during the exercise.
- Authorities described the measure as a controlled simulation of communications disruptions caused by cyberattacks or undersea cable cuts to test how people and services cope with short outages.
- A comparable communications-restriction drill is scheduled for Aug. 13 in northern Taiwan, including Taipei, and officials say the paired exercises could affect about 17 million people, more than 70% of the population.
- The staged regional approach aims to let military and civil agencies evaluate procedures and public behavior while limiting disruption, reflecting Taiwan’s reliance on mobile networks and concern over telecom and undersea-cable vulnerabilities.