[General] Internet Slowdown

Thu Jan 31 09:44:36 +03 2008

Thanks once again Burhan. Guess we are impatient, no need to say that. I am
just wondering, couldn't he have done before the weekend? I had a lot of
plans ahead. So guess it's gonna be a family weekend after all :)

I will just pretend I did it from heart and not because of the internet
crisis :P

On Jan 30, 2008 11:22 PM, Burhan Khalid <burhan at kuwaitnet.net> wrote:

> Funny how we are all slaves to the might Internet and its mistress
> Bandwidth. Does anyone remember the days of 2600 BBS? :)
>
> A ship's anchor is not a light beast; depending on the size of the boat,
> it might have one, two or four of these giant anchors. Anyway; what
> happened is that normally submarine pipes are marked in navigational
> maps so things like what happened in Egypt don't happen.
>
> However, by some stroke of luck, the authorities shifted the locations
> where boats may berth (ie, park) and drop anchor. So what happened is
> one of these anchors damaged the covering over these submerged fiber
> optic cable 'tunnels'. As I'm sure you know, fiber optic uses light
> pulses to transfer information and the cables are actually very fine
> shards of glass -- the point being, not the most sturdy of objects.
>
> The problem with the backbone is that it takes a lot of investment to
> plan, build and execute a submerged 'master link'; and most of the
> tier-1 bandwidth providers (like UUNet and AT&T) have already invested
> in linking major hubs via submerged cables. The reason? Its cheaper and
> faster than terrestrial (ie, above ground) and sat links -- not to
> mention fast; to make matters worse, these bandwidth providers are not
> the people that actually build these links, they are other companies so
> you can imagine the phone calls that are flying around right now.
>
> Everyone buys upstream bandwidth -- even telcos like AT&T, Du, Etisalat,
> MoC in Kuwait, QualityNET, FT, etc. So when a link like this is
> compromised, it affects everyone from top down.
>
> The reason the net is very slow right now is because the providers have
> shifted to their backup network (you will probably see some marketing/pr
> laced "report" mentioning how _____ telco is able to provide access
> because they have invested in next generation backup links blah blah
> blah)...anyway, the point is -- when you can't go underwater, you go
> above -- as in sat links with terrestrial base stations.
>
> Satellite bandwidth has two problems -- giant latency (its not good for
> latency sensitive operations); its expensive (because of the nature of
> the technology) and requires additional systems -- terra stations; like
> the ones you see at the MoC centers (where there is a giant dish that
> moves depending on the time of day).
>
> Satellite bandwidth is sold based on what's called a 'contention ratio'
> -- how many other people are sharing the access with you. To give you a
> comparison, typical home DSL is on a 10:1 contention ratio, meaning that
> any given time, there are 10 other people fighting over the same down/up
> pipe. Satellite bandwidth *starts* at 20:1 ratio, and the lower the
> ratio, the more expensive it gets. Of course, the lowest is 1:1 -- which
> means its you and some other lucky duck sharing the pipe (channel) at
> any given time.
>
> So what is happening now is that routes are shifting (slowly) to
> satellite outbound and inbound. You will see lots of dropped packets
> because the channels are flooded; and eventually -- what goes up, must
> come down meaning that the signal must travel over (or under) ground to
> reach the DC where the server you are trying to access is.
>
> Its a snowball effect that will affect systems in ME, Asia and
> eventually Europe and main net "hubs" like NY.
>
> To fix such a problem, they have to send a repair ship, a dive team to
> assess the damage, then to do the actual repairs (underwater, mind you),
> then test connectivity between the two booster stations, and then
> restore bandwidth slowly. Even if they manage to fix it in one day, it
> will be flooded from all the 'back traffic' that is queued.
>
> In summary -- a few days of patience are required :)
>
> bashar abdullah wrote:
> > Thanks very much Burhan for this informative, though bad, news. I
> > noticed it was too slow could kill you. I am just wondering, why do we
> > have to be under the mercy of those stupid people in Egypt where they
> > park there ships. Shouldn't first of all the cable be more preventive to
> > damages, as this is seriously not the first kind of problem we faced in
> > last 2 years. 2nd, Shouldn't the whole backbone of the internet inside
> > the middle-east have more robust redundant and high availability
> > infrastructure?
> >
> > It's funny we talk about disaster side at work when the whole business
> > is pointless when a simple idiot mistake like that can harm the whole
> > middle-east, or in fact, the world!
> >
> > Network is not my area, but if you can shed some light on those things,
> > I'd be more than grateful. I know high cost of redundancy under water is
> > one thing, but losing the whole internet is definitely more serious. I
> > can hardly call this internet really. A dial-up account works better
> > than my 512 right now.
> >
> > Thanks again
> >
> > On Jan 30, 2008 9:24 PM, Burhan Khalid <burhan at kuwaitnet.net
> > <mailto:burhan at kuwaitnet.net>> wrote:
> >
> >     Salaam Everyone:
> >
> >     As I'm sure you all have noticed; the Internet has been anemic
> today,
> >     and for good reason. Two submarine fiber optic cables were damaged
> >     affecting the Middle East and most of Asia. You can quote the
> following
> >     in case you are being hammered by complaints. The local ISPs are
> aware
> >     of the issue (well, at least FT with whom I spoke).
> >
> >     "A submarine cable in the Mediterranean was cut earlier today,
> resulting
> >     in a dramatic slowdown in internet access for people in India, Sri
> >     Lanka, Pakistan and much of the Middle East.
> >
> >     A spokesman for Flag Telecom, the owner of the severed cable, told
> the
> >     Reg: "It is a problem off the coast of Alexandria in Egypt. For some
> >     reason ships were asked to anchor in a different place to normal -
> 8.3km
> >     from the beach. One of the ship's anchors cut our cable but there
> are
> >     multiple cuts - we're not the only company having problems."
> >
> >     He said they were in the process of getting a repair ship out to
> assess
> >     the damage but he warned the whole process could take 12 to 15 days
> even
> >     though the ship was in the Med. He said users in India would have a
> >     slower internet access as a result.
> >
> >     Such major damage to the internet backbone can cause major problems
> >     despite redundancy which allows some re-routing. The loss of so much
> >     bandwidth is likely to have an impact.
> >
> >     A Reg reader told us: "We've got some connectivity to our India
> office,
> >     but it's very flakey (currently losing half the packets) which could
> be
> >     a result of overloading. Is very similar to a couple of Christmas'
> ago
> >     when there was a earthquake near Taiwan and it severed undersea
> cables
> >     causing major bottlenecks on what was left to most of Asia for a
> couple
> >     of weeks."
> >
> >     Apart from being serious for the region, the cable break could also
> hit
> >     large UK and US enterprises which have offshored business processes
> and
> >     backoffice functions to companies in India, Pakistan or the Middle
> >     East." @
> >     http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/01/30/india_mideast_lose_internet/
> >
> >     "International phone calls from the UAE were disrupted and Internet
> >     service crawled to a halt Wednedsay when two submarine fibre-optic
> cable
> >     systems "snapped" in the Mediterranean.
> >
> >     The cables link the Middle East with Europe, but the slowdown was
> felt
> >     the world over, according to local telecom operators. The
> disruption,
> >     whose cause remains unknown, has wreaked havoc among millions of
> >     internet and phone users, etisalat and du said in a statement.
> >
> >     Du said two submarine fibre-optic cables, FLAG Telecom and SEA-ME-WE
> 4,
> >     were "damaged".
> >
> >     "We apologise to our customers for the inconvenience and assure them
> >     that we will keep them informed of the situation on a continuous
> basis,"
> >     said etisalat in a statement.
> >
> >     A company spokesperson said they are working closely with the
> concerned
> >     operators for urgent repair work "to ensure the links with major
> global
> >     internet hubs are restored at the earliest."
> >
> >     The company said it has activated backup links which meant that
> normal
> >     Internet browsing and essential traffic will continue to work "at
> >     reasonable speeds".
> >
> >     At the Dubai Media and Internet free zones and the Knowledge
> Village,
> >     web access crawled to halt.
> >
> >     "It's a day gone to waste. They're not telling us what time it's
> coming
> >     back.
> >
> >     And they're not even sure whether it's coming back tomorrow," a
> Media
> >     City executive said.
> >
> >     A du spokesperson told XPRESS the degradation of internet services
> and
> >     international voice calls only occurred for some customers during
> peak
> >     times.
> >
> >     "We are working actively with the submarine cable system operators
> to
> >     ascertain the reasons for the cables being cut, and they are working
> to
> >     give affected operators a recovery schedule."
> >
> >     Etisalat said it has already started migrating internet and
> >     international voice traffic through other cable systems that have
> not
> >     been affected.
> >
> >     "Some congestion may be expected at peak times until this issue is
> >     resolved. We will keep our customers updated on its progress."" @
> >     http://www.xpress4me.com/news/uae/national/20005528.html
> >
> >
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