RSSInternet blackout cuts off tens of millions in the Middle East
By Tim Conneally | Published January 31, 2008, 4:21 PM
On Wednesday, Internet traffic to Middle Eastern countries through two international data pipelines was greatly reduced or totally severed, as a result of breaks in undersea cables.
Countries serviced by the Sea Me We 4 and FLAG ("Fiber-optic Link Around the Globe") data pipelines were severely affected by what are believed to be undersea breaks.
Egypt was the first to report almost total connectivity loss of both data and voice service. Since then, its systems have been back up to about 40% capacity, according to the Egyptian Telecommunications Minister. Though the country anticipates a return to 75% of normal within 48 hours, traffic will most certainly be reduced for weeks.
Sea Me We 4 is a 24,500 mile long pipeline maintained by a consortium of telecommunications companies that runs from Germany, through the Middle East, around India, all the way to Australia and Japan. It has been operational since November 2005. The break in that particular cable has been reported to be in the Mediterranean Sea between Palermo, Italy and Alexandria, Egypt.
The break in FLAG, the telecom project parented by the Reliance Group, India's largest business house, is reportedly off the coast off of Marseille, France.
Countries affected most by the severance, as calculated by global Internet monitoring service Renesys, are: Algeria, Egypt, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Maldives, Syria, Lebanon, Kuwait, The United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Pakistan, and India.
A trade group in India, the Internet Service Provider's Association, reported a 50-60% drop in bandwidth there. The global impact of a disconnected India could be severe, as many global corporations have all their back office services outsourced there. This means reduced connectivity to call centers, legal, insurance and healthcare transcription, research, collections, and credit processing.
The layout of countries affected by today's service breaks is literally historic, since today's data cable routes through the Middle East and North Africa parallel the trade routes upon which empires were established, back when the most valuable commodities were more physical than virtual.
Before World War I, Admiral of the British fleet, Lord Fisher, cited the importance of five strategic locations on the globe: Singapore, The Cape (Capetown), Alexandria (Suez), Gibraltar, and Dover. He referred to these as the "Five keys [that] lock up the world."
Alexander Harrowell remarked today on the message board of the North American Network Operators Group that these five points remain strategically important today, because of the landing stations where these international undersea cables intersect. The paths that international data traffic take today remain heavily rooted in the paths of colonial conquest of the 15th century British empire. "The similarity," Harrowell wrote, "is truly uncanny."
And now a third cable... This time off the coast of Dubai...
http://www.cnn.com/2008/...ernet.outage/index.html
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Anyone else find it interesting that the number 2 Al qaeda leader is taken out and the next day most of the mid east Internet is down?
Could it be Bush wants to make a major push ASAP before we get some prissy menopause cow in office?
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well it could have something to do with the piratebay ?
(this was supposed to be funny) :=)
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Hey now... That's not a nice thing to say about Obama.
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ROFLMAO!
That was beautiful.
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Achmed, take this boat and row out to this place on map. Swim down and cut cable. When you get back and tell us you have been successful, Al Qaeda will send out emails to entire world that we can cripple the infidel's internet!
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Since when is the middle east the land of the infidel? If it was al quaeda, then they just cut their own throat, or was that their idiotic plan to show us how retarded they are?
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Was Nigeria cut off?
Please?
Pretty please?
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Getting a lot of spam recently, I take it.
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How did you know? Unless....
You're not from Nigeria, are you?
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419Eater.com
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The BBC have been speculating that it was a ships anchor that did the damage.
That's pretty damn unlucky if it was.
"The break in that particular cable has been reported to be in the Mediterranean Sea between Palermo, Italy and Alexandria, Egypt"
Heh. I hope they have a little more information than that; could be a while before it gets fixed otherwise.
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