RedSea4u

Posted earlier on Luxor4u (the blue side).....

[face=Comic Sans MS]I've just heard that the Internet is down all over Egypt becuase of a cable problem in Italy. So if you can't get hold of your friends and family on line today (or the next few days ) that would seem to be the reason.

I've started looking for news items about this but not found anything yet.

Jewel's kindly followed up with:[/face]


This from yahoo tech:

Mass Internet outages in Egypt after cables cut (AP)
Posted on Fri Dec 19, 2008 12:00PM EST

CAIRO, Egypt - Egypt's communications ministry says Internet cables in the Mediterranean Sea have been cut, causing massive Internet outages.
The ministry says three Internet cables running through the Mediterranean were cut Friday morning. Throughout the country the Internet is almost completely down or working sporadically.
The ministry says it will take "several days" for cables to be repaired and is trying to switch Egypt's Internet to an alternative route.
It is the second large-scale Internet outage in Egypt this year. Undersea cables were also damaged in January, causing outages in the Mideast and India.
Yemen and Sudan were also having phone and Internet difficulties Friday, but it was unclear if it was connected to the outage.

It is not clear as yet but may be connected to the problem earlier in the year
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/.....tion=world

Still all in all a bad time for this to happen

Quote:
it will take "several days" for cables to be repaired
well we know what that might mean ...........watch this space!

Hepzibah
Moderator: Luxor4u/Egypt4u

Well im back on but it is intermitten and slow, pages in Egypt are loading faster than ive ever seen but i only know 4 sites in Egypt

3 major cables cut in Mediterranean; Internet, phone traffic disrupted

Three of four major underwater cables have been severed in the Mediterranean Sea, seriously disrupting Internet and telephone service between Europe, the Middle East and Asia, Bloomberg reports. The fiber-optic cables handle more than 75% of the traffic between the Mideast, Europe and the United States, and 90% of transmission between Europe and the Mideast.

The BBC reports that 65% of traffic to India is thought to be down, and that Singapore, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Taiwan and Pakistan have also been hit hard, with Egyptian officials saying nearly all Net service is down. Traffic is being rerouted, but that will likely cause Internet slowdowns or dropped phone calls.

It's not yet know what cut the cables between Italy and Tunisia. A similar outage in January was blamed on a ship's anchor off Egypt, and that may be the case again, according to Interoute, a European Internet Service Provider.

The BBC says that some seismic activity was reported near Malta, where the break apparently occurred, shortly before the cut was detected this morning. The U.S. Geological Survey recorded a magnitude 5.9 undersea quake in the Northern Mid-Atlantic, about 1,100 miles northwest of Portugal, but it's not clear whether the two events are connected.

It might be days before the cables can be repaired, and experts are warning that regional economies may be hit hard. The first repair ship is expected to arrive Monday morning.

The cables are known as SMW 3 and SMW 4, which are owned by phone companies, and FLAG, which is owned by Reliance Globalcom.


Source: USA TODAY



Three undersea cables cut: traffic disturbed between Europe and Asia

3 cables cut this morning (Sea Me We3 partly + Sea Me We4 + FLAG)France Telecom Marine cable ship about to depart

PARIS — France Telecom observed today that 3 major underwater cables were cut: “Sea Me We 4” at 7:28am, “Sea Me We3” at 7:33am and FLAG at 8:06am. The causes of the cut, which is located in the Mediterranean between Sicily and Tunisia, on sections linking Sicily to Egypt, remain unclear.

Most of the B to B traffic between Europe and Asia is rerouted through the USA. Traffic from Europe to Algeria and Tunisia is not affected, but traffic from Europe to the Near East and Asia is interrupted to a greater or lesser extent (see country list below).

Part of the internet traffic towards Réunion is affected as well as 50% towards Jordan. A first appraisal at 7:44 am UTC gave an estimate of the following impact on the voice traffic (in percentage of out of service capacity):

Saudi Arabia: 55% out of service
Djibouti: 71% out of service
Egypt: 52% out of service
United Arab Emirates: 68% out of service
India: 82% out of service
Lebanon: 16% out of service
Malaysia: 42% out of service
Maldives: 100% out of service
Pakistan: 51% out of service
Qatar: 73% out of service
Syria: 36% out of service
Taiwan: 39% out of service
Yemen: 38% out of service
Zambia: 62% out of service

France Telecom immediately alerted one of the two maintenance boats based in the Mediterranean area, the “Raymond Croze”. This France Telecom Marine cable ship based at Seyne-sur-Mer has received its mobilization order early this afternoon and will cast off tonight at 3:00 am with 20 kilometers spare cable on board. It should be on location on Monday morning for a relief mission.

Priority will be given to the recovery of the Sea Me We4 cable, then on the Sea Me We3.

By December 25th, Sea Me We4 could be operating. By December 31st, the situation should be back to normal.


Source: France Telecom

It is really, really slow when we do have Internet in Hurghada and most of the time you click onto a new page a get "Page cannot be displayed"........I am lost without Internet!

Horay...it's back and working fine now, thank god, I'm lost without it