TechNews
Cable break causes wide internet outage
At least for a while, the World Wide Web wasn't so worldwide. Two cables that carry internet traffic deep under the Mediterranean Sea snapped, disrupting service Thursday across a swath of Asia and the Middle East. India took one of the biggest hits, and the damage from its slowdowns and outages rippled to some U.S. and European companies that rely on its lucrative outsourcing industry to handle customer service calls and other operations. "There's definitely been a slowdown," said Anurag Kuthiala, a system engineer at the New Delhi office of Symantec Corp., a security software maker based in California. "We're able to work, but the system is very slow." While the cause of the damage was not yet known, the scope was wide: Traffic slowed on the Dubai stock exchange, and there was concern that workers who labor for the well-off in the Mideast might not be able to send money home to poor relatives. The cables, which lie undersea north of the Egyptian port of Alexandria, were snapped Wednesday just as the working day was ending in India, so the full impact was not apparent until Thursday. There was speculation a ship's anchor might be to blame. The two cables, named FLAG Europe Asia and SEA-ME-WE 4, are in close proximity. Egyptian officials said initial attempts to reach the cables were stymied by poor weather. Repairs could take a week once workers arrive at the site, and engineers were scrambling to reroute traffic to satellites and to other cables. The snapped cables which lie on the sea floor and at some points are no thicker than the average human thumb caused problems across an area thousands of miles wide. Bangladesh, Pakistan, Egypt, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Bahrain all reported trouble. There was concern for millions of South Asians who send money home. They do everything from construction to child care for the wealthy and are paid little by local standards but their income is often a lifeline for poorer families back in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel.
Comments