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| Science & Technology |
| FOURTH undersea cable has been 'damaged' |
| 2008-02-03 |
| Another Middle East undersea Internet cable has been damaged, adding to disruption in Indian online services caused when several lines were cut earlier this week, a cable operating firm said Saturday. The Falcon cable was cut 56 kilometres (35 miles) from Dubai, between Oman and the United Arab Emirates, according to its owner FLAG Telecom, part of India's Reliance Communications. The company said on its website that a repair ship had been notified and was expected to arrive at the site in the next few days. The cause of the latest cable damage was not immediately known. Flag Telecom owns another undersea cable which was damaged off Egypt on Wednesday in the Mediterranean. Indian media reports have attributed that damage to a ship's anchor which dropped on the cable. On the same day in Kuwait, the government reported two cables damaged by "weather conditions and maritime traffic." The cable damage has left India's vital outsourcing industry grappling with major communications disruptions and businesses saying they could take up to two weeks to return to normal. It has also disrupted Internet service across the Middle East and other parts of South Asia. A repair ship was expected to arrive by next Tuesday to restore the FLAG Telecom cable that was damaged off Egypt, the company said. Smaller Indian firms will be harder hit as they depend on a single service provider, said R.S Perhar, secretary of the Internet Service Providers' Association of India (ISPAI). "But traffic has already started moving after being re-routed," Perhar said. Around 90 percent of the services were expected to be restored by Sunday, the ISPAI said. India's 11-billion-dollar outsourcing industry is made up of 1,250 firms that deliver services ranging from answering customer queries to processing credit card and mortgage applications. The industry employs 700,000 people, serving clients mainly in the United States and Europe that sought to cut costs by farming out work to the country. |
| Posted by:Anonymoose |
| #12 Hey, me and Frank G were nowhere near that cable. |
| Posted by: SteveS 2008-02-03 23:29 |
| #11 FOURTH undersea cable has been 'damaged' It'll be interesting to see if it gets 'damaged' a second time. |
| Posted by: gorb 2008-02-03 22:45 |
| #10 Gametime in 3-2-1... |
| Posted by: M. Murcek 2008-02-03 22:25 |
| #9 World map of submarine optical fiber cables. |
| Posted by: DMFD 2008-02-03 22:13 |
| #8 Looks like we've found another under-water capability for our submarines. |
| Posted by: www 2008-02-03 22:11 |
| #7 Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action, Mr Bond. - Auric Goldfinger Or action against our enemies. |
| Posted by: DMFD 2008-02-03 21:52 |
| #6 IRAN Current Index: 0 Response Time (ms): 0 (in this case that transl. to infinite) Packet Loss: 100% As HDMD states, coincidence. ;-) |
| Posted by: twobyfour 2008-02-03 21:35 |
| #5 OK, fourth time, coincidence, fifth time?...same |
| Posted by: Halliburton Data Mining Division 2008-02-03 20:53 |
| #4 #2. Is someone taking out Iran's surreptitious banking action? Could be. But I bet these "accidents" are playing hell with the service desks in India. |
| Posted by: GK 2008-02-03 20:18 |
| #3 India may have an Internet problem, but check the connectivity status of another country in the region. http://www.internettrafficreport.com/asia.htm Seems awfully convenient to me. |
| Posted by: rammer 2008-02-03 20:15 |
| #2 We've been hitting Iran's international banking links pretty hard. Maybe Imanutjob went looking for a little internet back door action (banking, that is) and somebody is taking it out. |
| Posted by: Who knows? 2008-02-03 19:49 |
| #1 Curiouser. When the fifth cable is damaged/cut, I start buying stocks of military-industrial complex. |
| Posted by: twobyfour 2008-02-03 19:22 |