In August, citizens of the Republic of China will be invited to try to figure out how to telecommunicate when mobile Internet slows to a crawl (Focus Taiwan/CNA, July 21, 2026).
For the first time, the nationwide Urban Resilience Exercises and air raid drills on Aug. 10 and 13 will include a simulation of a major slowdown in mobile internet speeds in 14 cities and counties across northern and central Taiwan.
In central Taiwan’s Miaoli County, Taichung, Changhua County, Nantou County, Yunlin County, Chiayi County and Chiayi City, the drill will take place on Aug. 10 from 2:30 p.m. to 3 p.m.
In Taipei, New Taipei, Taoyuan, Keelung City, Hsinchu City, Hsinchu County and Yilan County in northern Taiwan, the exercise will be held on Aug. 13 from 2:30 p.m. to 3 p.m….
Voice calls, SMS messages and the public warning system are expected to function normally. However, activities that rely heavily on mobile data—such as video streaming, video calls, uploading photos and large files, and cloud-based services—are likely to be significantly affected.
The drill won’t impair wired Internet, emergency services (which use radio communication), military communications, traffic lights, ATMs, payment systems (as long as these “use fixed-line internet connection”).
No online ordering
“However, tasks such as placing online orders, uploading identification documents or conducting real-time trading over a 4G or 5G connection may be disrupted. Officials recommend avoiding such activities during the drill or using fixed-line internet or Wi-Fi instead.”
This inability to order food online using cellular Internet or to buy and sell stocks using cellular Internet will last half an hour.
It doesn’t sound like a particularly strenuous test. Maybe the thinking is that any drill lasting longer than half an hour or that also disables voice calls would make it too hard to cope with real-life emergencies.
The drill will serve as an effective public service announcement if Taiwanese who now have only a cell phone as a means of communicating with the outside world consider what it would be like to completely lose cellular service during an emergency. They’d want access to wired Internet, wired telephones, ham radios and/or walkie-talkies. And then there are the nontechnological preparations they could make, like agreeing to meet in a certain place if disaster strikes and all telecommunication with significant others becomes impossible.
