Middle East Middle East oddities

Ship’s Anchor Cuts Middle East’s Internet Connection…….

The Tundra Tabloid’s good colleague TINSC, fills me in with the latest: “Did you hear about the internet cable cut off the coast of Alexandria Egypt? It has knocked out internet service to much of the Arab world and India. Israel is uneffected because the Arabs wouldn’t share their cable with Israel. As a result, the Israelis have their own undamaged cable.”

So I did some checking and low and behold:

CAIRO (Reuters) – A communications cable in the Mediterranean Sea was cut on Wednesday, disrupting Egypt’s Internet services, the Telecommunications Ministry said. “This cut has affected Internet services in Egypt with a partial disruption of 70 percent of the network nationwide,” the ministry said in a statement. The statement said it would likely take several days for the services to return to normal. One stock broker said the disruption had an impact on trading at the Egyptian stock exchange.More here.

The Register states:

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.

So,.. I hate to be cynical, but how long before this is all blamed on Israel? *L* KGS

One Response

  1. Reports say that Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain Pakistan and India, are all experiencing severe problems.

    Nations that have been spared the chaos include Israel — whose traffic uses a different route — and Lebanon and Iraq. Many Middle East governments have backup satellite systems in case of cable failure.

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