Chuck Kuhn's Asia in Photos: Cable breaks disrupt Internet service in Egypt

Friday, December 19, 2008

Cable breaks disrupt Internet service in Egypt

CAIRO (Reuters) - Breaks in three submarine cables in the Mediterranean off Italy disrupted Internet and international telephone services in Egypt on Friday, officials said.
The disruptions reduced the country's Internet capacity by about 80 percent but technicians were restoring some capacity by diverting communications traffic through the Red Sea, said a Communications Ministry official, who asked not to be named.
Residents said Internet service was either non-existent or very slow. The gravity of the outage varied from area to area and according to the service provider.
Several residents said it was impossible to call the United States but calls to Europe appeared to be going through.
In January, breaks in undersea cables off the Egyptian coast disrupted Internet access in Egypt, the Gulf region and south Asia, forcing service providers to reroute traffic.
The International Cable Protection Committee, an association of submarine cable operators dedicated to safeguarding submarine cables, said on Friday it was "aware of multiple submarine cable failures in the Eastern Mediterranean area that may be affecting the speed of Internet communications on some routes."
It said in a statement on its website it did not know what had caused the problem or what was being done to fix it.
Stephan Beckert, an analyst with the U.S.-based telecommunications market research firm TeleGeography, said if the three cables in the Mediterranean were cut and were completely out "it would be a fairly significant outage."
"It is going to cause problems for some customers. It's certainly going to slow things down," he said, adding that he did not believe financial institutions would be hit hard.
"Generally speaking we find that they are extremely painstaking about making sure that they have redundant capacity," he said.
A New York Stock Exchange spokesman said he was unaware of any disruptions in trading. Exchanges CME Group, and IntercontinentalExchange said they had no disruption in their trading on Friday.
(Reporting by Jonathan Wright in Cairo, Jim Finkle in Boston, Juan Lagorio and Elinor Comlay in New York; Editing by Dominic Evans)2008 Thomson Reuters. All rights reserved. Reuters content is the intellectual property of Thomson Reuters or its third party content providers. Any copying, republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Thomson Reuters. Thomson Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon. "Reuters" and the Reuters Logo are trademarks of Thomson Reuters and its affiliated companies. For additional information on other Reuters media services please visit http://about.reuters.com/media/.

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They say "

“I can’t say what made me fall in love with Vietnam - that a woman’s voice can drug you; that everything is so intense. The colors, the taste, even the rain. Nothing like the filthy rain in London. They say whatever you’re looking for, you will find here. They say you come to Vietnam and you understand a lot in a few minutes, but the rest has got to be lived. The smell: that’s the first thing that hits you, promising everything in exchange for your soul. And the heat. Your shirt is straightaway a rag. You can hardly remember your name, or what you came to escape from. But at night, there’s a breeze. The river is beautiful. You could be forgiven for thinking there was no war; that the gunshots were fireworks; that only pleasure matters. A pipe of opium, or the touch of a girl who might tell you she loves you. And then, something happens, as you knew it would. And nothing can ever be the same again.”
― Graham Greene, The Quiet American

Tips on Travel to Vietnam

It's always warm in Southeast Asia apart from high mountains, so leave the heavy clothing at home. Cotton and breathable fabrics are always better than synthetics -- although cotton does wrinkle a lot when traveling! December through April is roughly the dry season in that region, although it can still rain a little. December is a good time to go in terms of temperature -- cooler than in the humid summertime. Either way, wearing more clothing (shirt sleeves and long pants) is always more respectful towards the Asian culture, especially when visiting temples and rural areas.