via Drudge:
Internet and telephone communications between the Middle East and Europe were disrupted after three submarine cables between Italy and Egypt in the Mediterranean Sea were damaged. There is no timeframe for when communications will be restored, said Sanjeev Gaur, director of assurance at Reliance Globalcom Ltd. in India. France Telecom SA, which plans to send a maintenance boat to fix the problem, said the situation should be back to normal by Dec. 31. The cables run from Alexandria in northern Egypt to Sicily in southern Italy. In January, an anchor severed the cables outside Alexandria after bad weather conditions forced ships to moor off the coast.
"The information we have is a bit sketchy, but chances are that it will have been an anchor again," Jonathan Wright, Interoute's director of wholesale products, said in a telephone interview. "Close to 90 percent of all the data traffic between Europe and the Middle East is carried on these three cable systems." 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, according to France Telecom's Orange mobile-phone unit. Most mobile-phone calls are routed through fixed-line cables at some point.
I imagine our clever boys and girls are as happy as frogs in a rainstorm as they take advantage of the bottleneck. Happy hunting, y'all! |