Taiwan will hold its first drill simulating restricted mobile network access during wartime or a major disaster, with exercises scheduled for Aug. 10 and Aug. 13 across 14 cities and counties in northern and central Taiwan, according to plans cited in a BlockTempo report.
The program falls under this year’s urban resilience exercise. During the drill, residents are expected to experience noticeably slower mobile internet service for about 30 minutes. Social media platforms and video streaming services may become difficult to use, while phone calls, text messages and government emergency alerts are expected to remain available.
The report described the event as the first exercise of its kind in Taiwan focused on mobile network slowdown under emergency conditions.
Schedule and locations
Both drills are set for weekday afternoons and will last 30 minutes. Mobile data speeds are expected to return to normal once each session ends.
- Central Taiwan: Aug. 10, Monday, from 14:30 to 15:00, covering Miaoli County, Taichung City, Changhua County, Nantou County, Yunlin County, Chiayi County and Chiayi City.
- Northern Taiwan: Aug. 13, Thursday, from 14:30 to 15:00, covering Taipei City, New Taipei City, Keelung City, Taoyuan City, Hsinchu County, Hsinchu City and Yilan County.
Bandwidth will be reserved for calls, SMS and alerts
The National Communications Commission said that if wartime or major disaster response mechanisms are activated, telecom operators would use two measures: disaster roaming and tiered traffic throttling. Those measures would direct limited bandwidth first to voice calls, text messaging and government alert systems, while sharply reducing data capacity available to ordinary users.
Under that setup, calls and SMS should still work, but data-heavy activities such as browsing Facebook, watching videos or sending large image files could lag badly or fail altogether.
Authorities urge residents to save shelter information in advance
To help the public access disaster-prevention information even if mobile data becomes constrained, authorities advised residents to check nearby shelters ahead of time through the National Police Agency’s air-raid shelter section on its website, the Police Service app and the Fire and Disaster Prevention e-point app. They were also advised to save screenshots of that information to their phone galleries so it remains accessible offline.
According to the report, this is also the first time the urban resilience exercise has formally incorporated the idea of offline backup support for digital public services into public disaster preparedness training.