Third undersea Internet cable cut in Mideast

CNN ^

[BladeLWS]

(CNN) -- An undersea cable carrying Internet traffic was cut off the Persian Gulf emirate of Dubai, officials said Friday, the third loss of a line carrying Internet and telephone traffic in three days.

Dubai has been hit hard by an Internet outage apparently caused by a cut undersea cable.

Ships have been dispatched to repair two undersea cables damaged on Wednesday off Egypt.

The ships were expected to reach the site of the break on Tuesday with repairs completed by February 12, according to a press release from FLAG Telecom, which owns one of the cables.

Stephan Beckert, an analyst with TeleGeography, a research company that consults on global Internet issues, said those cables were likely damaged by ships' anchors.

The loss of the two Mediterranean cables -- FLAG Telecom's FLAG Europe-Asia cable and SeaMeWe-4, a cable owned by a consortium of more than a dozen telecommunications companies -- has snarled Internet and phone traffic from Egypt to India.

[BladeLWS]

Okay... two cables cut in a close location I can believe as an accident on someones part. But a third cable cut almost a thousand miles away in the same week? Does this sound like sabotage to anyone else?

[lexington minuteman 1775]

Sounds suspicious to me...

[xsrdx]

Does this sound like sabotage to anyone else?

Don't know, but it does sound like a monumental PITA to repair!

[fanfan]

Ping

[r9etb]

Does this sound like sabotage to anyone else?

I was thinking more along the lines of it being a cover for something else.

[Wally_Kalbacken]

 

 

[BullDog108]

First time happenstance
Second time coincidence
Third time enemy action
---James Bond (or Ian Fleming...)

[Abathar]

Of course it is - That’s where we hid the Roswell evidence, I thought everyone knew that...

[NCjim]

Sound suspicious - almost as if someone is not happy about everyone outsourcing to India...

[WhistlingPastTheGraveyard]

Does this effect any communications coming out of Israel?

[DoughtyOne]

Window of opportunity perhaps.

If it will only take two weeks to repair, it would seem that this effort could only be used to offer a window of opportunity, or perhaps even a temporary block of some activity.

[Squidpup]

The timing is suspicious...

[dljordan]

“Don’t know, but it does sound like a monumental PITA to repair!”

I saw a show about how they repair these cables on one of the science channels once and yes, it’s a real PITA. It requires incredible skill and some real ship handling.

[r9etb]

Of course it is - That’s where we hid the Roswell evidence, I thought everyone knew that...

The little-known fact is that the Roswell aliens were crab people, and their latest brood of children are "teething" on the cables....

[C210N]

Looking at the internet traffic site, I see:

two routers for Africa... one looks normal, and the other is now experiencing 100% packet loss.

The other clearly relevant router is Iran, which is also at 100% packet loss.

[MNJohnnie]

Once is Happenstance. Twice is Coincidence. The third time is Enemy action. - Ian Fleming

[logic]

I just saw one report last night and immediately said it was Israel...... this is neat!!!! (I work telecom...) I figure they’re about to do something!!!

[cgk]

he two cables damaged Wednesday collectively account for as much as three-quarters of the international communications between Europe and the Middle East, so their loss had a much bigger effect.

It isn't just Dubai being affected here. You may be right about Israel.

[Abathar]

If you ever saw a map of all the cables laid across the bottom of the oceans and how they crisscross all over the place I am surprised that there aren’t a whole lot more of them broken each year. Some places like around Japan and England there are literally hundreds and hundreds of the things all over the place.

[avacado]

"Third undersea Internet cable cut in Mideast"