Showing posts with label mideast cable break. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mideast cable break. Show all posts

February 06, 2008

one more confirmed cable cut: Qatar and UAE

From Marc parent's mparent7777-2.blogspot.com comments:


Also there is one more cable.

The Q-TEL damaged somewhere inbetween Haloul, Qatar and Das,UAE 1 february.

http://www.itp.net/news/510132-internet-problems-continue-with-fourth-cable-break

so with the list from KhaleejTimes who mention a cable cut in Penang Malaysia which for me still is unconfirmed the total number of damaged cables should be 6

Tuesday, February 05, 2008


Wired's speculation on the cut cables 5 Feb.

The Undersea Cable-Severing Conspiracy

By Bruce Sterling EmailFebruary 05, 2008 | 2:45:45 AM

(((Captain Nemo did it. Better send Professor Aronnax out to investigate.)))

http://callcenterinfo.tmcnet.com/analysis/articles/20044-damage-fourth-undersea-cable-sparks-conspiracy-theories.htm" Link: Damage to Fourth Undersea Cable Sparks Conspiracy Theories .

"When three undersea cables providing connectivity in the Middle East and westward to Europe and North America were cut last week in the Middle East, the impact was immediate — and significant — as many with connections in the region were shut off from Internet communications. That meant VoIP service, IM, and email were suddenly unavailable.

"Now, repair work has begun on one of the three severed cables, with a second repair vessel expected to begin servicing a second line imminently, with hopes that service to the Middle East and Asia would soon be restored.

Sunday, however, a fourth cable connecting Qatar and the UAR has also been cut, though apparently for a different reason. The first three, in the Mediterranean Sea and Persian Gulf, are said to have been severed by dragging anchors — though various reports claim that explanation has been retracted by the Egyptian Transport Ministry.

According to the Ministry’s official report, “The Ministry’s Maritime Transport Committee reviewed footage covering the period of 12 hours before and 12 hours after the cables were cut, and no ships sailed the area The area is also marked on maps as a no-go zone, and it is, therefore, ruled out that the damage to the cables was caused by shipping.”

The fourth cable has reportedly been shut down due to power issues, which are expected to take several days to repair.

With four cables now having been damaged in a week in the region, and particularly with the latest statement from the Ministry, speculation is running rampant as to whether the damage is a result of international sabotage.

Reports claim a variety of sources that might have incapacitated the cables, from the U.S. Secret Service, to Islamic fundamentalists, or other military exercises. (((I'd be guessing they mean the NSA, which has been known to use the US Navy to covertly wiretap undersea cables, but the Al Qaeda Submarine Boat Squad would be a new one.)))

Others maintain the damage signifies retribution for the impending opening of the Iranian Oil Bourse, which will allow trading in currencies other than the U.S. dollar, potentially diminishing the value of the dollar. (((As if the dollar wasn't busy diminishing itself, with or without submarines.)))

Clearly, the political impact, should the damage be attributed to military or financially motivated activity, poses severe implications, but apart from that, the mere impact on broadband connectivity within the region, and communications capabilities with Europe and North America have already been hampered, causing significant disruption to workflows at many businesses.

“This has been an eye-opener for the telecom industry worldwide,” said According to Colonel R.S. Parihar, Secretary of the Internet Service Providers Association of India. “Today, the cause of the problem might have been an anchor, but what if it is sabotage tomorrow? These are owned by private operators, and there are no governments or armies protecting these cables.”

Indeed, submarine cables carry nearly all global Internet and phone traffic — largely because it is considerably cheaper that satellite transmission — and further damage, or an inability to effectively repair the already disabled lines, could pose a significant impact on not only the global business community, which has come to rely heavily on IP-based communications. (...)

(((More:)))

--More Undersea Cables Damaged (January 4, 2008)

Two more undersea cables are reportedly out of service, raising questions about whether four severed cables in under a week is coincidence or sabotage. In addition to the two cables cut in the Mediterranean last week, reports that a cable off the coast of Dubai was damaged emerged on Friday, February 1. The most recent damaged cable links Qatar to the United Arab Emirates. Gartner emphasizes the importance of developing and maintaining redundancy and business resumption plans.

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5i03tUdyj8wf2Xa9P4trWEjqAJdyQ http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2008/02/4th-undersea--1.html http://www.gartner.com/DisplayDocument?doc_cd=155170&ref=g_homelink

[Editor's Note (Ullrich): Multiple failures like this will of course look suspect. However, in this case some of the failures may be linked to smaller earthquakes in the area, while at least one of the cables was already known to be unstable and failed after it was exposed to additional traffic in an attempt to bypass the earlier outages.]


February 03, 2008

update on broken internet cable!! cut no. 4 fixed in 2 weeks??

nternet problems continue with fourth cable break
by Dylan Bowman and AFP on Sunday, 03 February 2008

Internet services in Qatar have been seriously disrupted because of damage
to an undersea telecoms cable linking the Gulf state to the UAE, the fourth
such incident in less than a week.

Qatar Telecom (Qtel) said on Sunday the cable was damaged between the Qatari
island of Haloul and the UAE island of Das on Friday.

The cause of damage is not yet known, but ArabianBusiness.com has been told
unofficially the problem is related to the power system and not the result
of a ship's anchor cutting the cable, as is thought to be the case in the
other three incidents.

The damage caused major problems for internet users in Qatar over the
weekend, but Qtel's loss of capacity has been kept below 40% thanks to what
the telecom said was a large number of alternative routes for transmission.

It is not yet clear how badly telecom and internet services have been
affected in the UAE. Etisalat is expected to release a statement on Monday.

Parts of the Gulf Arab region were plunged into a virtual internet blackout
on Wednesday when two undersea cables were cut near Alexandria, on Egypt's
north coast.

The initial breaches were in segments of two intercontinental cables known
as Sea-ME-We-4 and Flag Europe-Asia.

The situation was made worse on Friday when Flag, part of India's Reliance
Communications, revealed a third cable, Falcon, had also been damaged off
the UAE coast.

Etisalat said it does not use the Falcon cable and is therefore unaffected,
but the UAE's second telco, Du, warned the damage could hamper its efforts
to restore normal service to customers. Etisalat said it is helping Du
minimise disruption.

Flag said a repair ship was expected to arrive at the location of the third
damaged cable in the next few days, but bad weather has prevented the vessel
from setting off from Abu Dhabi port.

The ship is now expected to depart Monday morning and the repairs should
take five days.

The third cable is located 56 kilometres from Dubai on a segment between the
UAE and Oman.

Etisalat said it had been informed by Flag Telecom, which operates one of
the two damaged cables in the Mediterranean Sea, that the problem should be
fixed in two weeks, while the operator of the other cable planned to carry
out repairs on February 8.

Flag said on Saturday a ship should reach the cable repair ground by
February 5.

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