Undersea cable network disrupted Internet links to Egypt

[Dr. A ♥ O 203]

UPDATE 1-Internet services in Egypt and India disrupted

Wed Jan 30, 2008 1:08pm EST

(Adds details, quotes, background, previous Mumbai)

By Alaa Shahine

CAIRO, Jan 30 (Reuters) - A breakdown in an international undersea cable network disrupted Internet links to Egypt, India and Gulf Arab countries on Wednesday, and Egypt said it could take several days for its services to return to normal.

It was not immediately possible to gauge the impact of the disruption on financial institutions. Egypt's telecoms ministry said 70 percent of the country's Internet network was down and India initially said it had lost over half its bandwidth.

"This cut has affected Internet services in Egypt with a partial disruption of 70 percent of the network nationwide," the Egyptian ministry said in a statement.

Residents of Gulf Arab countries also reported a slowdown in Internet connectivity. The Bahrain Telecommunications Co BTEL.BH said its services were affected after two undersea cables were cut near Alexandria, on Egypt's north coast.

The Egyptian telecoms ministry said it did not know how the cables were cut or if weather was a factor. Storms had forced Egypt to close the northern mouth of the Suez canal on Tuesday.

India also reported serious disruptions to its services and Rajesh Chharia, president of the Internet Service Providers' Association of India, told Reuters: "There has been a 50 to 60 percent cut in bandwidth."

Chharia told the Headlines Today news channel that a "degraded" service would be up and running by Wednesday night, but full restoration would take 10 to 15 days.

"The big operators have transferred their small broadband connectivity through the Pacific route, and that's the reason there's no hue and cry in the country," he said.

One Indian Internet service provider affected by the cut, Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd (VSNL), said its service had been "largely restored" by diverting to another cable. Two outsourcing firms in Bangalore reported minimal disruption.

"There has been a small outage in the evening today. But it has been restored now," said a spokesman for Satyam Computer (SATY.BO: Quote, Profile, Research)(SAY.N: Quote, Profile, Research), India's fourth-biggest outsourcing firm.

MIDDLE EAST ROUTES AFFECTED

AT&T Inc. (T.N: Quote, Profile, Research) said that a cable owned by a consortium of which it is part was affected. "We do know that one cable is disrupted," AT&T spokesman Michael Coe said, adding that the cable in question goes between France and Egypt.

"We are impacted on certain routes to the Middle East. The traffic is being rerouted," Coe said. "Multiple carriers are rerouting so we do expect some congestion."

Egypt said its call centres saw their services cut by more than 30 percent, and two Egyptian stockbrokers said market transactions were considerably slower and some international trading orders could not go through.

"It (the disruption) had a very negative impact on the stock market today," one Cairo-based trader said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. "At times, we were trading blind."

Stock market officials were not available for comment.

Egypt's Deputy Central Bank Governor Tarek Amer, asked about the impact of the disruption on the banking system, said: "We are disappointed (with) the service and will consider alternatives for the banking system if this happens again."

In Cairo, much of the capital city was without access to the Internet for the bulk of the day, frustrating businesses and the professions.

"I can't do anything because I manage all my work by e-mail. It is very frustrating," said Egyptian lawyer Rebecca Mikhail. "As soon as I came in (to work) at 10 a.m. I didn't have access to the Internet ... If it goes into the next working week it is going to be a nightmare." (Reporting by Alaa Shahine, Cynthia Johnston and Wael Gamal in Cairo, Devidutta Tripathy in Mumbai, Sumeet Chatterjee in Bangalore, Jonathan Allen in New Delhi and Sinead Carew in New York) (Editing by Tim Pearce)

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[Aymerlu 3]

Wow...that sucks! Guess that's why my husband said none of his friends or family have been online today.

[ya falaha! 0]

A friend of mine from Egypt was online briefly about an hour ago but the chat was extremely delayed so we gave up.

[Dr. A ♥ O 203]

This is just the first update from there. The article says it may be several days before the undersea cables are repaired but with the way things go in Egypt it may be several weeks.

Hang in there!

[doodlebugg 10]

as long as the phone works i'm ok with it. lol. we don't chat online more than once a week anymore. too depressing.

[Cheryl & Medo 3]

This sucks I spend about 4 to 8 hours a day online with my husband...I dont know what i will do with all this time now ...It went out last night about 10:30 while i was online....Medo says it will be a week or longer and it is not the first time this has happened

[Dr. A ♥ O 203]

Looks like it's also affecting Kuwait & UAE.

Cable damage disrupts Egypt, Gulf telecoms and Internet

3 hours ago

CAIRO (AFP) — Damage to a submarine cable in the Mediterranean caused disruption to Internet services in Egypt and Kuwait and to telephone services in the United Arab Emirates on Wednesday, officials said.

"A communication cable in the Mediterranean Sea was cut, which led to partial disruptions to Internet and communication services in Egypt," Egyptian Minister of Communication and Information Technology Tareq Kamel said.

The minister, who did not elaborate, said an emergency team had been formed to try to find alternative communication channels, with a ministry statement saying it could take several days for services to return to normal.

In Kuwait, the communications ministry said two cables in the Mediterranean off Alexandria had been cut, affecting traffic around the region, and causing slower than normal service in the Gulf emirate.

Spokesman Ahmed Ramadan said the incident was the result of "weather conditions and maritime traffic" and that it would take 12 to 15 days to repair the cables.

He added that Kuwait was seeking "alternative solutions" and hoped to return to normal Internet service in three to five days.

Elsewhere in the Gulf, Emirati providers Etisalat and Du said international telephone services were affected and that they were working to restore services as quickly as possible, the United Arab Emirates' WAM news agency reported.

Source

[amrssnowangel 0]

My SO was online today..it was good at first..then slowed..but we got to touch..Alhamdolellah... We got to talk about 2 hours online..he says the communications minister said that internet was up to 55% for Egypt...They are expecting to to improve tomorrow, in shaa Allah...

[doodlebugg 10]

My SO was online today..it was good at first..then slowed..but we got to touch..Alhamdolellah... We got to talk about 2 hours online..he says the communications minister said that internet was up to 55% for Egypt...They are expecting to to improve tomorrow, in shaa Allah...

Does he go to a cafe or does he have connection at home?

[Ban Hammer 13,283]

Finger-thin cables tie Internet together

NEW YORK - The lines that tie the globe together by carrying phone calls and Internet traffic are just two-thirds of an inch thick where they lie on the ocean floor.

The foundation for a connected world seems quite fragile, an impression reinforced this week when a break in two cables in the Mediterranean Sea disrupted communications across the Middle East and into India and neighboring countries.

Yet the network itself is fairly resilient. In fact, cables are broken all the time, usually by fishing lines and ship anchors, and few of us notice. It takes a confluence of factors for a cable break to cause an outage.

"Most telecom companies have capacity at multiple systems, so if one goes out, they simply reroute to a different system," said Stephan Beckert, analyst at research firm TeleGeography in Washington. "It's just that in this case, both the main route and the backup route got cut for a lot of companies."

The two cables — FLAG Europe Asia and SEA-ME-WE 4 — were cut on the ocean floor just north of Alexandria, Egypt.

By an accident of geography and global politics, Egypt is a choke point in the global communications network, just as it is with global shipping. The reasons are the same: The country touches both the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, which flows into the India Ocean.

The slim fiber-optic cables that carry the world's communications are much like ships, in that they're the cheapest way for carrying things over long distances. Pulling cable overland is much more expensive and requires negotiation with landowners and governments.

So fiber-optic cables that go from Europe to India take the sea route via Egypt's Suez Canal, just as ships do.

Another Mediterranean cable makes land not far away, in Israel.

But there's no cable overland from Israel into Jordan and to the Persian Gulf, which could have provided a redundant connection for the Gulf States and India. Going overland would have been more expensive and politically difficult — Israel and Arab countries would have to cooperate.

There is also no route that goes through Russia, Iran and Pakistan to India. The terrain is rugged, Pakistan is politically unstable, and India and Pakistan are not on good terms.

With two of the three cables passing through Suez cut, traffic from the Middle East and India intended for Europe was forced to route eastward, around most of the globe.

The main route goes through Japan and the United States, crossing both the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. According to Beckert, this is normally the cheap way to go for Indian traffic, since capacity is high. However, the distance means more time required to reach Europe and get a response.

The other route from India to Europe goes over China into Russia and along the Trans-Siberian railroad.

Egypt is not the only choke point in the global network. The ocean just south of Taiwan proved to be one in December 2006, when an earthquake cut seven of eight cables passing through the area, slowing down communications in Hong Kong and other parts of Asia for months.

Another possible vulnerability is the U.S. island of Guam in the Pacific Ocean. It is the spider at the center of a web cables from the United States, Japan, Australia, the Philippines and China.

Both cables that connect the United States to Australia and New Zealand run over Hawaii, creating another choke point.

These bottlenecks are likely to go away, however, as telecoms build more and more lines. Another U.S.-Australia line is scheduled to be completed soon, according to Beckert, and a U.S.-China line that bypasses Japan is also in the works.

But it will be years before the network across Asia is as resilient as the trans-Atlantic network, where multiple high-capacity lines over different routes provide a connection that's almost impossible to disrupt. And the factors that make the Suez Canal a vulnerable point now will likely remain.

Mustafa Alani, head of security and terrorism department at the Dubai-based Gulf Research Center, said the outage should be a "wake-up call" for governments and professionals to divert more resources to protect vital infrastructure.

"This shows how easy it would be to attack" communications networks, he said.

Yet the owners of the undersea cables aren't very concerned with terrorism, according to Beckert. They're too busy worrying about fishing boats.

"They want to publish maps of their cables as widely as possible, so fishing crews know where they are," Beckert said. "The risk of accidental cuts is much, much greater than the risk of deliberate cuts."

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[~~~water~~~ 0]

I know we have been affected

[Ahmed N Cheryl 0]

My SO was online this morning.....we talked for about an hour and a half.

But he had to go to an internet cafe because his home connection was not back yet.

The People at his company told him only 2 to 4 days......Aggghhhhhhhh!!! I will die if it is 15 days.

I have already spent $100 on minutes for my cell phone so we can talk.

Inshallah it will be soon that the cables are fixed and connections are restored.

Now the crappy connections I was always frustrated with does not look so bad.....LOL

[Ahmed N Cheryl 0]

This sucks I spend about 4 to 8 hours a day online with my husband...I dont know what i will do with all this time now ...It went out last night about 10:30 while i was online....Medo says it will be a week or longer and it is not the first time this has happened

Awwww Cheryl......I feel your pain. My So lost connection on tuesday the 29th and today was the first day we were able to talk. He went to a internet cafe but he had to search all over before he found one with connection. So we got to talk for an hour and a half today before I left for work. I hope they are all restored before the 12 to 15 days quoted in the news. I will die at this rate. We only have 10 days to our Interview date. I hope we will all be back online withour SO or husbands soon.

[♥Sora_9_Dam3a♥ 0]

this suckssss!!! my husband texted me the other night at around 1:30 or 2 am asking me to get online and i was surprised cuz it isn't usual.....lol, his internet was actually working and he wanted to take advantage..hahaha....

we try talking on the phone as much as possible...but it's difficult, he always insists on calling, but its super expensive compared to the prices here...i think its a little more than double the price actually...

...texts will suffice.... :unsure: kind of :crying: :crying:

[monnik 0]

Hey ! What is this ? Everyone is affected by not being able to talk to their husbands, but no one cares that I'm not able to post !!!!

:crying: :crying:

Just kidding.

But, anyway....the internet at our house is muuuuuuuuch faster and seems to be connected well right now. We noticed that it was fast around 2am. For the past 2 days or so, only Egyptian websites were available on our computer!!!

Happy Saturday, I mean, Caturday..... I hope the connection comes back for everyone!