[General] Internet Slowdown

[Yaser Ramzy]

''Operators believe the damage was caused by ship anchors during a heavy 
storm at sea, Wire services reported that ships heading for Egypt's 
northern coast were diverted due to the storms, and their anchors may 
have severed the cables several miles from shore.''

http://www.itworld.com/Tech/2987/internet-access-in-middle-east-disrupted-080130/



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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