Irans cables cut

What the media are not saying
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BASEL
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Irans cables cut

Post by BASEL » Fri Feb 08, 2008 12:39 am

Connecting The Many Undersea
Cut Cable Dots - 9 Or More?
By Richard Sauder, PhD
Copyright 2008. All rights reserved.
2-5-8

http://www.rense.com/general80/cable.htm

The last week has seen a spate of unexplained, cut, undersea communications cables that has severely disrupted communications in many countries in the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia. As I shall show, the total numbers of cut cables remain in question, but likely number as many as eight, and maybe nine or more.

The trouble began on 30 January 2008 with CNN reports that two cables were cut off the Egyptian Mediterranean coast, initially severely disrupting Internet and telephone traffic from Egypt to India and many points in between. According to CNN the two cut cables "account for as much as three-quarters of the international communications between Europe and the Middle East." CNN reported that the two cut cables off the Egyptian coast were "FLAG Telecom's FLAG Europe-Asia cable and SeaMeWe-4, a cable owned by a consortium of more than a dozen telecommunications companies".(10) Other reports placed one of the cut cables, SeaMeWe-4, off the coast of France, near Marseille.(9)(12) However, many news organizations reported two cables cut off the Egyptian coast, including the SeaMeWe-4 cable connecting Europe with the Middle East. The possibilities are thus three, based on the reporting in the news media: 1) the SeaMeWe-4 cable was cut off the coast of France, and mistakenly reported as being cut off the coast of Egypt, because it runs from France to Egypt; 2) the SeaMeWe-4 cable was cut off the Egyptian coast and mistakenly reported as being cut off the coast of France, because it runs from France to Egypt; or 3) the SeaMeWe-4 cable was cut both off the Egyptian and the French coasts, nearly simultaneously, leading to confusion in the reporting. I am not sure what to think, because most reports, such as this one from the International Herald Tribune, refer to two cut cables off the Egyptian coast, one of the two being the SeaMeWe4 cable,(11) while other reports also refer to a cut cable off the coast of France.(9)(12) It thus appears that the same cable may have suffered two cuts, both off the French and the Egyptian coasts. So there were likely actually three undersea cables cut in the Mediterranean on 30 January 2008.


More here http://www.rense.com/general80/cable.htm
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Post by BASEL » Sun Dec 21, 2008 12:34 pm

Cables cut again!!

Breaks in three submarine cables under the Mediterranean, possibly caused by a ship's anchor, have disrupted Internet and international telephone services in parts of the Middle East and South Asia, officials said on Saturday. Skip related content
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A ship carrying a submarine repair robot was on its way to the site between Sicily and Tunisia on Saturday, with work expected to take until the end of the year, a spokesman for ship owner and telecom operator France Telecom said.

The undersea cables, owned by different consortiums including France Telecom, were damaged between 7:28 a.m. and 8:06 a.m. British time on Friday. A fourth minor cable linking Malta and Italy may also have been affected, the spokesman said.

"There are two theories: either the anchor of a ship, which could have displaced them ... or an earthquake. We think it's the first theory," spokesman Louis-Michel Aymard said.

The "Raymond Croze" cable ship was expected to reach the scene at 10 p.m. on Sunday, when the remotely operated "Hector" robot would start a search for the cables, which could have been dragged several kilometres, Aymard added.

The damage to the SEA-ME-WE3, SEA-ME-WE4 and FLAG cables caused varying degrees of disruption from Zambia to India and Taiwan.

"We think we will get SEA-ME-WE4 repaired by December 25. For 4 and 3, it should be done by the end of the year, or maybe January 1," Aymard said. France Telecom is not a partner in the FLAG consortium.

The disruption reduced Egypt's Internet capacity by about 80 percent. 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.

In Pakistan, Internet service provider Micronet Broadband said its customers were facing degraded Internet services because of problems on the SEA-ME-WE3, SEA-ME-WE4 and FLAG lines.

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 and disrupting some businesses and financial dealings.

Several Egyptian residents said late on Friday that it was impossible to call the United States but calls to Europe appeared to be going through.

In Pakistan, Micronet engineer Wajahat Basharat said on Saturday Internet traffic was congested and slow and some of it was being diverted to other routes.

"SIGNIFICANT OUTAGE"

Stephan Beckert, an analyst with the U.S.-based telecommunications market research firm TeleGeography, said the three affected cables were the most direct route for moving traffic between Western Europe and the Middle East.

"If those three cables were cut and are completely out, it would be a fairly significant outage," he said.

"It is going to cause problems for some customers. It's certainly going to slow things down," Beckert 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.

Officials with AT&T Inc and Verizon Communications, the two largest U.S.-based carriers, said that some customers in the Middle East had lost all service, while others were experiencing partial disruptions on Internet connections.

Verizon had rerouted some of its traffic by sending it across the Atlantic, then the United States, across the Pacific, and on to the Middle East.

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.
To resist the influence of others, knowledge of one's self is most important.

Draw from your past....... but don't let your past draw from you

Yama, The world is changed. I feel it in the water. I feel it in the earth. I smell it in the air. Much that once was..... is lost. For none now live who remember it.

For all your Computer needs www.btlogic.co.uk

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