Repairs to Cut Internet Cables Begin

[Joanne98]

Source: WP

CAIRO, Egypt -- A repair ship began work Tuesday at the site where an Internet cable was cut last week in the Persian Gulf, and a second vessel was to arrive later that day at the spot north of Egypt where two other cables were cut just two days earlier, FLAG Telecom said.

The cuts have disrupted Internet services across a large swath of the Middle East and India, slowing down businesses and hampering personal Internet usage.

There has been wide speculation that the cuts were caused by ships' anchors dragged along the bottom of the sea in stormy weather. But Egypt's telecommunication ministry said Sunday no ships were registered near the location when the first cut in the cables occurred, north of the Egyptian port of Alexandria.

The Egyptian statement further deepened the enigma of how the damage happened.

U.K.-based FLAG Telecom said its repair ship arrived Tuesday some 35 miles north of Dubai, between the Emirates and Oman, were the company's FALCON cable was damaged Friday.



Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/05/AR2008020502563.html

[Tesha]

1. Duplicate...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3169840

[TomInTib]

2. Yeah, from 6 1/2 hours ago.

I wasn't even awake, yet.

I will take 'em when I find 'em.

[ohio2007]

3. Who cuts undersea cables in the Middle East? (5th cable was cut)

total of five cables being operated by two submarine cable operators have been damaged with a fault in each. These are SeaMeWe-4 (South East Asia-Middle East-Western Europe-4) near Penang, Malaysia, the FLAG Europe-Asia near Alexandria, FLAG near the Dubai coast, FALCON near Bandar Abbas in Iran and SeaMeWe-4, also near Alexandria.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/02/05/2154764.htm

[TomInTib]

4. I'm thinking submersibles.

Mini-subs, the kind normally used for inspection and repair.

This story reminds me of the quickly-forgotten, now off-the-radar story of the nukes that were flown to Barksdale and then back to Offuts(?).

This is one very strange affair.