Third undersea Internet cable cut in Mideast

CNN ^

[BladeLWS]

(CNN) -- An undersea cable carrying Internet traffic was cut off the Persian Gulf emirate of Dubai, officials said Friday, the third loss of a line carrying Internet and telephone traffic in three days.

Dubai has been hit hard by an Internet outage apparently caused by a cut undersea cable.

Ships have been dispatched to repair two undersea cables damaged on Wednesday off Egypt.

The ships were expected to reach the site of the break on Tuesday with repairs completed by February 12, according to a press release from FLAG Telecom, which owns one of the cables.

Stephan Beckert, an analyst with TeleGeography, a research company that consults on global Internet issues, said those cables were likely damaged by ships' anchors.

The loss of the two Mediterranean cables -- FLAG Telecom's FLAG Europe-Asia cable and SeaMeWe-4, a cable owned by a consortium of more than a dozen telecommunications companies -- has snarled Internet and phone traffic from Egypt to India.

[BladeLWS]

Okay... two cables cut in a close location I can believe as an accident on someones part. But a third cable cut almost a thousand miles away in the same week? Does this sound like sabotage to anyone else?

[lexington minuteman 1775]

Sounds suspicious to me...

[xsrdx]

Does this sound like sabotage to anyone else?

Don't know, but it does sound like a monumental PITA to repair!

[fanfan]

Ping

[r9etb]

Does this sound like sabotage to anyone else?

I was thinking more along the lines of it being a cover for something else.

[Wally_Kalbacken]

 

 

[BullDog108]

First time happenstance
Second time coincidence
Third time enemy action
---James Bond (or Ian Fleming...)

[Abathar]

Of course it is - That’s where we hid the Roswell evidence, I thought everyone knew that...

[NCjim]

Sound suspicious - almost as if someone is not happy about everyone outsourcing to India...

[WhistlingPastTheGraveyard]

Does this effect any communications coming out of Israel?

[DoughtyOne]

Window of opportunity perhaps.

If it will only take two weeks to repair, it would seem that this effort could only be used to offer a window of opportunity, or perhaps even a temporary block of some activity.

[Squidpup]

The timing is suspicious...

[dljordan]

“Don’t know, but it does sound like a monumental PITA to repair!”

I saw a show about how they repair these cables on one of the science channels once and yes, it’s a real PITA. It requires incredible skill and some real ship handling.

[r9etb]

Of course it is - That’s where we hid the Roswell evidence, I thought everyone knew that...

The little-known fact is that the Roswell aliens were crab people, and their latest brood of children are "teething" on the cables....

[C210N]

Looking at the internet traffic site, I see:

two routers for Africa... one looks normal, and the other is now experiencing 100% packet loss.

The other clearly relevant router is Iran, which is also at 100% packet loss.

[MNJohnnie]

Once is Happenstance. Twice is Coincidence. The third time is Enemy action. - Ian Fleming

[logic]

I just saw one report last night and immediately said it was Israel...... this is neat!!!! (I work telecom...) I figure they’re about to do something!!!

[cgk]

he two cables damaged Wednesday collectively account for as much as three-quarters of the international communications between Europe and the Middle East, so their loss had a much bigger effect.

It isn't just Dubai being affected here. You may be right about Israel.

[Abathar]

If you ever saw a map of all the cables laid across the bottom of the oceans and how they crisscross all over the place I am surprised that there aren’t a whole lot more of them broken each year. Some places like around Japan and England there are literally hundreds and hundreds of the things all over the place.

[avacado]

"Third undersea Internet cable cut in Mideast"

[Professional Engineer]

ping

[elizabetty]

Will I still get to watch Tiger play golf this weekend?

[CholeraJoe]

How are you still online? Do you have a special socks satellite connection?

[WhistlingPastTheGraveyard]

See #15. Maybe it’s the good guys doing this.

[gimme1ibertee]

Yep.Sounds like somebody is planning something and absolutely does not want any hand-tipping to give it away. I too thought this was an accident but now,with this 3rd cable cut, i’m not so sure. It certainly is unnerving,to say the least. We better be keeping a really close eye on all of this.

[LibWhacker]

[CarrotAndStick]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/31/AR2008013101465.html

Internet in India slowed by Middle East outage

Cut cables in the Mediterranean Sea have slowed Internet traffic from India to the U.S. and the UK.

John Ribeiro
PC World
Thursday, January 31, 2008; 10:19 AM

Internet traffic from India to countries like the U.S. and the U.K. has slowed down, as Internet service providers (ISPs) have started diverting traffic from Middle Eastern links to slower links through the Asia-Pacific region, according to the head of an ISP association in India.

Two underwater cables in the Mediterranean Sea, including one from Flag Telecom, owned by India’s Reliance Communications, and another from the South East Asia-Middle East-West Europe 4 (SEA-ME-WE 4) consortium, were damaged Wednesday for reasons as yet unclear.

“These links carry most of India’s premium traffic to the Atlantic region, resulting in a disruption of about 50 to 60 percent of the bandwidth from India on Wednesday when the cables were first damaged,” said Rajesh Chharia, president of the Internet Service Providers’ Association of India (ISPAI), in an interview Thursday.

Most of the traffic has now been routed through submarine cable links in the Asia-Pacific but traffic to the east coast of the U.S. and the U.K. will be slow, because of the longer latency involved by these diversions, Chharia said.

Repairs to the Flag Telecom cable would take at least 10 to 15 days, which would mean that Indian companies, including outsourcing companies, will be affected for this period, Chharia said. A Reliance spokesman could not immediately provide an update on the status of the repairs, and other measures taken by Flag Telecom.

India’s second largest outsourcer, Infosys Technologies, said that its Internet service had not been affected by the outage in the Middle East. The company uses a lot of redundant links from a variety of service providers, a spokeswoman said...

EXCERPTED.

MORE: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/31/AR2008013101465.html

[NonValueAdded]

Cue Glen Beck’s “just another unrelated incident” jingle.

[Ghost of Philip Marlowe]

What has outsourcing got to do with anything?

If anything, it is a test-run or part of the Islamofascist attempt to prevent the people in their countries from have contact with Western ideas.

[Proverbs 3-5]

Will I still get to watch Tiger play golf this weekend?

I'm glad there is some sports worth watching this weekend!!

[NonValueAdded]

or a new jingle, "how many cuts must a ship's anchor bring, before we call it a plan?"

[Cold Heat]

Looks like Iran gave their buddies a mini sub.

[Tulsa Ramjet]

“But you know what? McCain does not publicly dispute this status ... he basks in the limelight when someone calls him that ... watch the endorsement by Arnold yesterday and when Arnold mentions McCain as a HERO he beams at the words.”

India didn’t pay their cable bill.

[CarrotAndStick]

Lol, but actually, FLAG is an Indian-owned submarine cable.

[MizSterious]

Strange...

You might be right, three makes it sound more deliberate, whether bad guys or good guys.

[Jersey Republican Biker Chick]

Things that make you say HMMMMMMMMMM.......PING!!

[Allegra]

How are you still online? Do you have a special socks satellite connection?

Dunno. This is my account "at home" (in quarters.) It's not a government connection and seems to be working OK. The server is here in Baghdad, but I don't know where the cable routing is from.

[Revolting cat!]

Somebody forgot to pay their cable bill. Man, those cable TV companies!

[Jersey Republican Biker Chick]

GLAD THEY DID NOT CUT YOU OFF!!

[Red Badger]

[Allegra]

Okay... two cables cut in a close location I can believe as an accident on someones part. But a third cable cut almost a thousand miles away in the same week? Does this sound like sabotage to anyone else?

Let's jsut say that almost everyone in certain sensitive regions thinks so.

[JZelle]

How’s the democratic underground going to info from their terrorist friends?

[NautiNurse]

Internet traffic from India to countries like the U.S.

There goes all the U.S. customer service assistance for airlines, ISP, etc.

[Anonymous Rex]

Sounds like the muzzies are trying to make sure that the people don’t have access to any thoughts other than those forced on them by their religious leaders.

[RainMan]

Nah ... its a joint SEC/DOJ task force ... notice you have not gotten any emails from the spouses of former African dictators that have funds to launder and they need your assistance.

[khnyny]

Okay... two cables cut in a close location I can believe as an accident on someones part. But a third cable cut almost a thousand miles away in the same week? Does this sound like sabotage to anyone else?

Yes, lol.

[weegee]

As accidential as two planes flying into the middle of the two WTC towers.

[Frobenius]

...Sounds like the beginning of an interesting Clancy novel.

[blam]

"I was thinking more along the lines of it being a cover for something else."

Yes...I was thinking that yesterday. Now, I'm not so sure.

[NCjim]

Because for the outsourcing from US and UK to work there has to be connectivity.

And the headline "Internet in India slowed by Middle East outage" gave me the thought