Another Mercury Retrograde story: the Internet is down in the Middle East

[crikkett]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3162358

Source: The Guardian

Middle East and Asia lose internet access after cable fails

Bobbie Johnson, technology correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday January 30 2008

Huge swathes of the Middle East and Asia have been left
without internet access after a vital undersea cable was
damaged.

A fault in the pipeline, which runs between Sicily and
Egypt, has dramatically reduced access in countries
including Saudi Arabia, Dubai and India, leaving millions
of workers struggling to get online.

It is not yet clear what is wrong with the undersea cable,
but the effects are already being felt across the region.
Reports from the Middle East suggest that most countries
are almost completely without access to the internet,
while authorities in Mumbai have said that more than half
of India's bandwidth has been lost.

-snip-

The outage could have drastic impacts around the globe.
Not only will the lack of connectivity strike the technology
industry, including India's so-called Silicon City of
Bangalore, but the banking industry is also likely to suffer
as stock markets struggle to complete international trades.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/jan/30/asia.internet.outage

[stellanoir]

1. I heard today that cell phone and internet access is far superior in China

though they generally block a lot of internet access.

I never know what I send to an expat living in China gets through to him.

[Why Syzygy]

2. I wonder if this affects our service people

serving in the area? (I have one.)

[rosesaylavee]

3. Interesting.

Wonder how that will effect all those outsourced workers over there trying to communicate back here in the U.S.? They don't say how long this will last... this will seriously effect the economies over there AND here.

[Callie McAllie]

4. Yikes. This is big.

Think of all the industries in this country that will be effected. All those outsourced IT jobs and help lines and such.

[rumpel]

5. it is big...

here is a site I sometimes look up how IT traffic is flowing...

http://www.internettrafficreport.com/

just for informative fun

[Why Syzygy]

6. Do the zeros in this chart

http://www.internettrafficreport.com/details.htm

indicate that there is no Internet traffic in that location? It includes Florida.

[rumpel]

7. No I think

it is packet loss - there is no packet loss

the ones that are down are in orange and the longer the "response time" the longer someone waits to connect.

Currently Iran has 100% packet loss and is totally down.
router1.iust.ac.ir
Iran (Tehran)
0
0
100
Yup! Florida seems to be down, too. But considering how many routers we have in this country, I think they quickly reroute..but just guessing.

[Why Syzygy]

8. Yeah ..

I found that bit about Iran interesting. I'm also wondering about Iraq and Afghanistan. Guess I'll have to go back and check.

[I Have A Dream]

9. You find the most interesting sites, rumpel!

:D

Thanks!