Free Republic

A specialist ship on its way to restore a vital communications cable linking Tonga to the rest of the world is expected to reach the archipelago on Sunday, two weeks after a volcanic eruption and tsunami damaged homes, resorts and infrastructure. The ship left Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, almost 5,000 km (3,000 miles) away on Jan. 20, according to Refinitiv Eikon data, and is expected to need a few weeks to carry out complicated repairs to the undersea cable. ... Faults in the world’s 436 active undersea cables are common and typically most traffic would be rerouted to another...

(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...