News Item: : Damaged cable hits Internet
(Category: Misc)
Posted by azhar
Friday 01 February 2008 - 02:49:47
Gulf Times
Staff Reporter
INTERNET traffic was affected yesterday as a fallout of damage to two submarine cable systems in the Mediterranean Sea, causing disruption of services across the Middle East and Asia.
“Inevitably, when there is damage to a major international cable system, it affects the international network that relies on it,” Qtel Group Communications executive director Adel al-Mutawa said in a statement.
Internet users faced a slowdown in the service with many websites remaining either totally inaccessible or taking a considerably long time to download.
Gulf Times received several calls from Internet users yesterday, including Qtel’s ADSL customers, who complained about the service slowdown.
Qtel stated that international voice calls were unaffected across Qatar. The newly-launched Blackberry Internet service, on which so many business users rely, was also unaffected.
“Fortunately, Qatar has a large number of alternative routes and therefore our loss of capacity has been kept below 40%,” the official clarified while attributing it to Qtel’s continuing commitment to quality of service.
Al-Mutawa said that Qtel is working hard to find alternative routes to improve matters during the period in which services are affected.
“Some corporate users are directly affected as they had lease lines that were specifically reliant on the system. Where possible we are making alternative arrangements for them,” he said.
Qtel is also providing some additional bandwidth to other GCC operators who have been severely affected by the disruption.
“Flag Telecom Group and SEA-ME-WE 4 (the cable operators responsible for the affected system) report that the problem will be rectified in 12 to 15 days,” Qtel added.
The cables cut are called the Flag and SEA-ME-WE 4 (connecting Italy and Egypt) and link the Western world to the East.
Reportedly a ship cut the SEA-ME-WE 4 cable at 8.3km from the Italian cost at 7.29am (Doha time) and the Flag cable was cut at 10.49am (Doha time)
“Damage to undersea cables is not an abnormal situation, it has happened numerous times in the past,” according to Qtel.
An Internet user said he could not open his mailbox since yesterday morning.
“Pictures took a long time to download and it was really painful waiting. A popular search engine remained inaccessible throughout the day,” he said.
Since Internet is now the nerve centre of businesses, the slowdown has affected many establishments in Qatar.
Elsewhere in the Gulf, Emirati providers Etisalat and Du said international telephone services were affected and that they were working to restore services as quickly as possible, the United Arab Emirates’ WAM news agency reported.
A Reuters report earlier said Internet services in Egypt had faced a 70% disruption.
Similar reports had come from India also where a 50% to 60% cut in bandwidth was experienced because of the breakdown in the international undersea cable network.
More news on Damaged Cable:
http://www.xpress4me.com/news/uae/national/20005528.html
http://www.thedailystar.net/story.php?nid=21359
http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/20080131/internet-egypt-india-submarine-cable-mediterranean-flag.htm
This news item is from Internet Service Providers Association Bangladesh
( http://www.ispa.org.bd/comment.php?comment.news.comment.23 )