Damaged undersea cables disrupting service

Parts of Asia, the Middle East, and Europe experienced Internet and telephone outages Friday when three undersea cables between Italy and Egypt in the Mediterranean Sea were damaged.

The affected cable systems, which run from Alexandria in northern Egypt to Sicily in southern Italy, carry more than 75 percent of traffic between the Middle East, Europe, and the United States.

It's still unclear how the cables were damaged or when they will be fixed. Reliance Globalcom, a communications provider in India, told Bloomberg News that there was no time frame for getting the network fixed. France Telecom said it plans to send a boat to fix the problem and should have service restored to normal by December 31, according to Bloomberg.

The cable system that was cut is known as SMW4 cable or South East Asia- Middle East-Western Europe 4. It connects 12 countries: Pakistan, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Italy and France.

Vodafone's cell phone service in Egypt has been affected by the cable failure, according to Bloomberg. Mobile phone service between Europe and Asia on Orange was also disrupted, the Bloomberg article said. Orange officials told Bloomberg that at one point as much as 55 percent of voice traffic in Saudi Arabia, 52 percent in Egypt, and 82 percent in India was out of service.

Telephone providers, such as Portugal Telecom and Reliance, told Bloomberg that they've been rerouting traffic to other parts of their network to avoid issues. But this rerouting has caused network congestion, which means slower Internet connections and some dropped phone calls.

In January, undersea cables outside Alexandria were also damaged, disrupting about 70 percent of the communications network in India and the Middle East.

[sanenazok]

I noticed I didn't get a call from "Pam" or "Ron" from India trying to peddle me something today.

[sandersen68]

hmmm. no wonder i couldn't get through to Sprint customer service! ; )

[timber2005]

Hmm... odd, I had no trouble. But I always seem to get a agent here in North Carolina where I live.

Now had you said DELL... well yeah I bet there just screwed right now xD

[cholis]

strange... no interupted connection in indonesia...

[zmonster]

The US Navy is probably installing eavesdropping devices on the cable lines. The way the ploy works is that the navy will intentionally damage the line in one location and then wait for the telecom repair ship to start making repairs on it. Then, while that is being done, the Navy will splice the line in a separate location far downstream and install the eavesdropping device. They do it this way to avoid detection (i.e. the world thinks the line was 'damaged' in one spot, and everyone focuses on the first damage point, and nobody realizes the eavesdropping device is installed simultaneously at a second point far down the line).

[Lerianis]

That is a good possibility. I am sure that our government would do something JUST as underhanded as that, if they knew that they could get away with it.

[mrcockrell]

damn now they are going to see all those emails i sent with those navy jokes

question... do they use the secret genetically mutated navy cyborg dolphins to damage the cables or what?

i mean wouldint it just be easier to just install their eavesdropping device and if anyone catches them they could just use their mind erasing device on them?? or even just freeze time with the secret navy time freezing mechanism and do it while we are all frozen??

[richto]

Its no joke. You obviously are not aware of the lengths that the US (and other) governments will go to to infringe other's privacy.

You might want to read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON

The report concludes that, on the basis of information presented, ECHELON was capable of interception and content inspection of telephone calls, fax, e-mail and other data traffic globally through the interception of communication bearers including satellite transmission, public switched telephone networks and microwave links.

[t8]

ECHELON have a spy base here in New Zealand for spying on communications that come around the south pole.

[tjmile1]

I've been having a lot of interruptions in my service both at work with AT&T DSL and RoadRunner Turbo at home. My credit card machine at work has been up and down the last few days. At home my Roku is extremely intermittent now. A movie will play for a couple of minutes and start buffering again. This has only been the past few days, but it's significant. I believe it's worse than they're telling us because I've never had so poor of connectivity with my service. AT&T didn't have any answers for me.

[JCPayne]

Hmmmm Many call centres have been shifting to the Caribbean due to proximity to the United States. USA Today had a big article about it..

Call centers booming in Caribbean - USATODAY.com
http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/2007-09-07-3451406171_x.htm
(snip)In a global search for low-cost customer service, AOL considered call centers in India and other hotspots -- then settled on the tiny island of St. Lucia.(end snip)