Yet Another ME Undersea Internet Cable Cut (Update: Post 15, This is about 3rd Cable)

This makes....what.....four already?? I'm beginning to get suspicious myself!

http://malaysia.news.yahoo.com/afp/20080202/tbs-india-mideast-internet-558302b.html

NEW DELHI (AFP) - - Another Middle East undersea Internet cable has been
damaged, adding to disruption in Indian online services caused when several
lines were cut earlier this week, a cable operating firm said Saturday.

The Falcon cable was cut 56 kilometres (35 miles) from Dubai, between Oman
and the United Arab Emirates, according to its owner FLAG Telecom, part of
India's Reliance Communications.

The company said on its website that a repair ship had been notified and was
expected to arrive at the site in the next few days.

The cause of the latest cable damage was not immediately known.

Flag Telecom owns another undersea cable which was damaged off Egypt on
Wednesday in the Mediterranean. Indian media reports have attributed that
damage to a ship's anchor which dropped on the cable.

On the same day in Kuwait, the government reported two cables damaged
by "weather conditions and maritime traffic."

The cable damage has left India's vital outsourcing industry grappling with
major communications disruptions and businesses saying they could take up
to two weeks to return to normal.

It has also disrupted Internet service across the Middle East and other parts of
South Asia.

A repair ship was expected to arrive by next Tuesday to restore the FLAG Telecom
cable that was damaged off Egypt, the company said.

Smaller Indian firms will be harder hit as they depend on a single service provider,
said R.S Perhar, secretary of the Internet Service Providers' Association of India
(ISPAI).

"But traffic has already started moving after being re-routed," Perhar said.

Around 90 percent of the services were expected to be restored by Sunday, the
ISPAI said.

India's 11-billion-dollar outsourcing industry is made up of 1,250 firms that deliver
services ranging from answering customer queries to processing credit card and
mortgage applications.

The industry employs 700,000 people, serving clients mainly in the United States
and Europe that sought to cut costs by farming out work to the country.

Iran has completely lost internet connectivity zero-zip-nada

http://www.internettrafficreport.com/asia.htm

I can't imagine this happening to the United States. And yes, this is the fourth cable in a week so something's definitely up. This is not an accident.

imaginative said:

Iran has completely lost internet connectivity zero-zip-nada

http://www.internettrafficreport.com/asia.htm

Click to expand...

How reliable is that site? It also says Florida is down?

You gotta be freakin' kidding me!?!?!?!

This actually makes five.

2 in Egypt
1 off Dubai
2 in Kuwait

I know very little about shipping and navigational matters....but it seems to me
that the location of those underwater cables should be made abundantly
clear to shipping in the area.
I agree that this is happening much too often for coincidence....let keep an
eye on this and see what....if anything, comes up.

Alright any guesses on just what the *ell the motive is behind this....... Especially with game day with some 100 million plus viewers doesn't exactlly give me the warm fuzzies.

Cally said:

How reliable is that site? It also says Florida is down?

Click to expand...

Not a drop from green to yellow, but a big RED "0" Index?

How difficult is it to cut these cables and what information must be had to do so?

Doesn't seem like the average "joe" could do this.

Understand that the site is only reporting the status of that particular router...not ALL of the routers in Florida. So that one particular router is down at the moment, the whole state of FL

happyretiree said:

Not a drop from green to yellow, but a big RED "0" Index?

Click to expand...

And wasn't a cable cut on a tsunami detector off of Indonesia as well?

Totally bizarre

RoadRunner said:

Alright any guesses on just what the *ell the motive is behind this....... Especially with game day with some 100 million plus viewers doesn't exactlly give me the warm fuzzies.

Click to expand...

Could it be that the cables are being cut to 'prevent' an attack? We know the terrorists use the internet extensively. I can't help but wonder if our guys know for sure an attack is imminent and have tried to prevent communication or transmission of a go signal. It would seem that the bad guys would cut cables that affected the USA.

Willow

Update:

I'm trying to nail this down for certain, but the article I posted *may*....I say may....
be referring to the third cable that was cut. There may NOT have been a fourth
cable cut.
This was posted elsewhere on the internet as 'breaking' and the article carried
today's date....so I may have been misled.
If I find out for certain this is the case, I'll post a retraction. If anyone can help
to verify this one way or the other, I'd appreciate it.

Anyone else remember "...the water.....the water.....the water" from the BS/TerrSig from a few years back?

And what about LG's stuff re: mice gnawing on wires, etc?

I'm finding only three cuts. Some of the stories appear to be reporting the same information from a previous day, with a new date. Here's a link to an earlier thread on the board with some good info. There's a good map showing the cables.

http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/showthread.php?t=275504

Tumbleweed said:

Update:

I'm trying to nail this down for certain, but the article I posted *may*....I say may....
be referring to the third cable that was cut. There may NOT have been a fourth
cable cut.
This was posted elsewhere on the internet as 'breaking' and the article carried
today's date....so I may have been misled.
If I find out for certain this is the case, I'll post a retraction. If anyone can help
to verify this one way or the other, I'd appreciate it.

Click to expand...

There were 2 off of Egypt, 1 off Dubai and 2 in Kuwait for a total of 5 cut cables.

Tumbleweed said:

Update:

I'm trying to nail this down for certain, but the article I posted *may*....I say may....
be referring to the third cable that was cut. There may NOT have been a fourth
cable cut.
This was posted elsewhere on the internet as 'breaking' and the article carried
today's date....so I may have been misled.
If I find out for certain this is the case, I'll post a retraction. If anyone can help
to verify this one way or the other, I'd appreciate it.

Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure you're right. I started to really dig after I saw your first post. I can't find anything new. It sounds like a repeat from earlier, on the third cut.

Text in red are my additions.

Tumbleweed said:

This makes....what.....four already?? I'm beginning to get suspicious myself!

http://malaysia.news.yahoo.com/afp/20080202/tbs-india-mideast-internet-558302b.html

NEW DELHI (AFP) - - Another Middle East undersea Internet cable has been
damaged, adding to disruption in Indian online services caused when several
lines were cut earlier this week, a cable operating firm said Saturday.

The Falcon cable was cut 56 kilometres (35 miles) from Dubai, between Oman
and the United Arab Emirates, according to its owner FLAG Telecom, part of
India's Reliance Communications.

That's one.

The company said on its website that a repair ship had been notified and was
expected to arrive at the site in the next few days.

The cause of the latest cable damage was not immediately known.

Flag Telecom owns another undersea cable which was damaged off Egypt on
Wednesday in the Mediterranean. Indian media reports have attributed that
damage to a ship's anchor which dropped on the cable.

Flag's competitor also had one cut in this same area, so this makes a total of three cables.

On the same day in Kuwait, the government reported two cables damaged
by "weather conditions and maritime traffic."

This makes a total of 5

The cable damage has left India's vital outsourcing industry grappling with
major communications disruptions and businesses saying they could take up
to two weeks to return to normal.

It has also disrupted Internet service across the Middle East and other parts of
South Asia.

A repair ship was expected to arrive by next Tuesday to restore the FLAG Telecom
cable that was damaged off Egypt, the company said.

Smaller Indian firms will be harder hit as they depend on a single service provider,
said R.S Perhar, secretary of the Internet Service Providers' Association of India
(ISPAI).

"But traffic has already started moving after being re-routed," Perhar said.

Around 90 percent of the services were expected to be restored by Sunday, the
ISPAI said.

India's 11-billion-dollar outsourcing industry is made up of 1,250 firms that deliver
services ranging from answering customer queries to processing credit card and
mortgage applications.

The industry employs 700,000 people, serving clients mainly in the United States
and Europe that sought to cut costs by farming out work to the country.

Click to expand...

Kadee said:

I'm pretty sure you're right. I started to really dig after I saw your first post. I can't find anything new. It sounds like a repeat from earlier, on the third cut.

Click to expand...

Yeah, looks like I jumped too soon. I can't find anything else about a fourth
cable cut. This appears to be just a late-posted article about the third cable.
I am adjusting the thread's title to reflect this.

Sorry if I caused any alarm.

Tumbleweed said:

Yeah, looks like I jumped too soon. I can't find anything else about a fourth
cable cut. This appears to be just a late-posted article about the third cable.
I am adjusting the thread's title to reflect this.

Sorry if I caused any alarm.

Click to expand...

Not a problem. It just a matter of how this story is being reported. The map on the other thread shows the cabling really well. Looks like some of the stories are reporting cuts to the same cable as being new cuts. Also some are saying "damage", which is not a cut. They lost some connectivity but were able to reroute. The Rensey blogs are really good. They appear to be a group of professionals talking about it. Found good info there Here's part III

http://www.renesys.com/blog/2008/02/mediterranean_cable_break_part.shtml#more

Mediterranean Cable Break - Part III
Our first two blog entries on this topic focused on the events of 30 January 2008, when two submarine cables systems were damaged. These systems provided much of the capacity into the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent from the west. Although some countries were hurt more than others, the loss of connectivity was extensive and very widespread. Some countries and a few providers were almost completely knocked off the Internet. As Day 1 came to a close, it was clear that the damaged cables were not going to be repaired anytime soon and the impacted parties would have to look for alternatives to waiting it out.

Day 2 and 3 saw a frenzy of activity as local providers in the region tried to broker agreements with anyone who still had capacity. They were under intense pressure to restore service to local governments and businesses. In turn, global and regional providers with surviving capacity into the region were busy hunting for new customers. We definitely had a seller's market. At Renesys, we watched all of the activity with great interest and decided to wait until the end of Day 3 to report on the winners and losers, after the initial deals were made and things had settled down to some degree.

In this part, we'll examine five selected countries and the providers into them both before and after the event. The countries we'll consider are Egypt, Kuwait, Saudia Arabia, Pakistan and India. We picked these because of their total number of unreachable networks and/or their prominence in the region. For each country, we consider only those networks which were unavailable after the cable cuts. A small number of those were also unavailable before the cuts, presumably for other reasons. After the cuts, all five countries lost global connectivity to a large number of their local networks. We looked at who provided service to these now lost networks before the cuts and then looked to see where they ended up at the end of Day 3 (2 February, 00:00 UTC). Were they still dead? Or were they restored by some other provider? Did any new providers suddenly appear in one of these countries? Did any fail to act? We'll answer these questions in what follows, limiting our charts to the larger players in each country. Keep in mind that throughout this discussion, we will be examining only those networks that were unavailable after the cable cuts. For example, in India, there were numerous networks that were not impacted by this event, namely, those getting capacity from the east, rather than the west. We are assuming that any network still reachable after the cuts had no reason to switch providers at this time and so we do not consider them further.




We start off by looking at Egypt, one of the harder-hit countries. At the end of Day 3, the big winner was Telecom Italia, which clearly picked up a lot of new business, restoring service to almost 300 more networks than they had originally lost. France Telecom was the big loser, with no down networks restored. Flag, who maintains one of the broken cables, managed to restore service to a few hundred networks, presumably by sending that traffic east, rather than west. Although not shown here, VSNL seized the opportunity and entered the Egyptian market for the first time, acquiring a local customer.




The situation in Kuwait was even more interesting with Global Voicecom, Telecom Italia, Flag and Verizon unable to restore a single down network. VSNL did what the others could not and restored service for all of their networks, as well as gained some new business. They clearly exploited the fact that they have capacity to both the east and west from this region. PCCW was the big winner, managing to pick up almost 70 new networks. And when all else fails, there is always satellite. Horizon Satellite entered the market, providing service to four of the fallen.




Saudia Arabia saw AT&T, Flag and Sprint largely unable to act to restore service. The big winners here were Deutsche Telekom, gaining 13 networks, and VSNL, gaining 11.




We now turn our attention to the Indian subcontinent and the two big players, Pakistan and India. First up is Pakistan. The big loser here was Verizon, with over 700 networks that they failed to restore. BT was the big winner, picking up almost 500 networks. In a country with under 1400 routed networks, this was a huge gain. PCCW also did very well, gaining over 200 new networks, while Stixlite started servicing an additional 166 networks.




And finally, we look at the huge market of India. Sprint, Cable & Wireless, Deutsche Telekom, BT and Verizon all took it hard here, largely failing to restore connectivity to their networks. AT&T and Flag also lost a lot of networks. But the big winner was SingTel, gaining over 200 networks, followed by Level 3, picking up over 100. One wonders why AT&T, with lots of fiber assets in the continent, had a net loss among these networks whereas Level 3, with no fiber in the region, saw a net increase.




Having reviewed these five countries in detail, we wondered how many networks were still unavailable? That is, how much money was still on the table for those nimble providers with additional capacity? For any country, there will always be a small number of unavailable networks at any given time. These could be down for entirely local reasons: scheduled maintenance, power outages, etc. So we graphed the number of networks unreachable both before the cable cuts and at the end of Day 3. As you can see, there is still much to do. But keep in mind that even when reachability is eventually restored to all down networks, overall capacity to the region will be severely curtailed until those cables are repaired. And latencies could be very high if, for example, Europeans now need to reach the Middle East by way of the US and Asia. Of course, some connectivity is always better than none at all.

So what will happen next, when service is fully restored? Flag is claiming this work will be complete by mid-February, but there was yet another cable cut yesterday. Who will restore service to those networks still off the air? Who were the large customers that shifted service to other providers? What were the lessons learned by this event and what can be done to guard against future cable cuts? These are questions we will leave to subsequent blogs. Stay tuned.

Think about money transfers and the global economy.

Hold it.

I just checked out some Iranian sites. They sure look up.

Tele, sat, mis. data, seem to be up.

This happened the last time.

ALmost exactly, the same.

Bob

http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/showthread.php?p=2711421#post2711421

Post 70.

Bob

The internet has provided an IMMEDIATE source of information that is also or has not had time to be 'filtered' or 'augmented' by TPTB. That translates to immediate reality and control of that real-time eperience, giving the opportunity for things to be 'responded to', 'filtered', 'managed' or 'controlled'.

Money transfers, global economy, air travel, terror networks, governments, people, EVERYTHING will be affected, kind of like the time period before the internet, eh?

Who serves to gain the most by this interruption? What do they serve to gain? How could it affect something? What non-imminent response could it prevent? WHO has the capability to take these actions in sequential timeperiods in these locations and with what kind of equipment to do the deed? They are the 'actors'. Those are the real questions, and somewhere lies the real answers - go to the 'reason'. All we can do now is wait to see it emerge by whatever MAY make it's appearance downstream in the next few days/weeks. There will be an answer, it may not be pretty.

We all know that China and Russia have been behaving in a new manner militarily, they are also those who could be behind these incidences, the US could also be the actor.

Okay,

I'll say this again.

This might be something, maybe.
or
Maybe not.

What we do not know is a lot more, than we do know.

Some Iranian internet sites are up.

imaginative Iran has completely lost internet connectivity zero-zip-nada

Click to expand...

That site is wrong, or data is being read wrong.

Look, check out the last post.
That site said Florida was down, while people where posting from Florida.

THere is a dis-connect here.
Not sure where, not sure why.

So, I suggest we slide back down to Def-con 4, and relax.
Something could come from this,or not.

Bob

Think about this,

this has been going on for a few days.

Iran still has internet. Still has comms.
For now.
No other action, seems to be going on.
For now.

If a strike where planned, why wait 3 or 4 days?
Why not hit tele comm, sat, radio and tv centers?

This may be a cooridnated something. But, now we have folks re-reporting cable breaks.

If a mil strike where going to happen, they have almost certainly lost the element of surprise.

I am not saying, do not watch.
But, it is a little early for heart attacks.

Relax.
We know very little.

Another thought, a strike on the day of the superbowl?
Not likely.

Bob

Breath, relax, Breath, relax.

Middle East Undersea
Cable Cutting A Zionist-NeoCon
Covert Operation?

Click to expand...

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

Bobfall: I agree and think you, right now, are a voice of reason and sanity.

As always, will wait, listen and watch. Until then, I'm enjoying my day.

Blessings!!

Sharon said:

Bobfall: I agree and think you, right now, are a voice of reason and sanity.

As always, will wait, listen and watch. Until then, I'm enjoying my day.

Blessings!!

Click to expand...

Yes....let me reiterate once more for anyone who was confused by what has
been posted:

I MADE A MISTAKE!! I inadvertently posted an 'old' article about a cable
break which occured a day or two before. This article had been posted today
on another forum as 'breaking news'. Also, the article itself had today's date.
So I was misled into thinking this was a 'new' article about a new cable break.
It is not....it is about a cable break which has already been reported.
I regret that I didn't spend a lot of time researching it. Like many here, I was
after the personal 'feather-in-the-cap' by being the first to post it. So I posted
it hurriedly without doing a lot of checking....lest someone beat me to posting
it.
I again regret any confusion or concern that I may have caused.

This is nearly 4 years old but I remember posting this about the internet and its structure.....

http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/showthread.php?t=105610

It might not be relevant to the middle east but it shows how long this has been a weapon to cut communications....

energy_wave said:

Middle East Undersea
Cable Cutting A Zionist-NeoCon
Covert Operation?

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

Click to expand...

NTSA!!! (Not this S**T again!)
Aunt Betsy this gets old!
Why don't the ever-zealous-to-root-out-conspirators folk at Rense ever post headlines querying the possible involvement of anyone other than the eeeeeevil Joos/ the dastardly "Zionists"?

When will we be treated to " Middle East Undersea Cable Cutting A New Cold War KGB Covert Operation?"

After all, anyone who can poison people with little nuggets like polonium must be capable of at least a few measly little cable cuts.

What if some Muslim terrorist group cut the cables to hide some broadcasts directed against US? Mr. Rense ever think of THAT??

Middle East Undersea
Cable Cutting A Zionist-NeoCon
Covert Operation?

Click to expand...

You know, I just got back from the monthly meeting, no one said anything to me.

Rense and CFR, that is a lot reading for 1 person.
Where do you find the time?

Bob

Tumbleweed: Your humbleness impresses me and gives me hope that not all in this world are "feather-in-your-cap" people.

Thank you for being you. Keep up the good work!

Sharon said:

Tumbleweed: Your humbleness impresses me and gives me hope that not all in this world are "feather-in-your-cap" people.

Thank you for being you. Keep up the good work!

Click to expand...

Thanks hon!

Egypt: No ships present when internet cable cut


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Associated Press , THE JERUSALEM POST Feb. 3, 2008


No ships were present when two marine cables carrying much of the Middle East's internet traffic were severed, announced Egypt's Ministry of Communications Sunday, contrary to earlier speculation about the causes of the cut.

The ministry had originally stated that a ship dropping its anchor on the two key cables was most likely responsible for Wednesday's cut in service that robbed Egypt, Saudi Arabia and India of much of their internet.

"A marine transport committee investigated the traffic of ships in the area, 12 hours before and after the malfunction, where the cables are located to figure out the possibility of being cut by a passing vessel and found out there were no passing ships at that time," said the statement.

The ministry added that the location, 8.3 kilometers (5 miles) from the port of Alexandria, was in a restricted area so ships would not have been allowed there to begin with.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1201867288121&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/Printe

Now it gets interesting. This is the story I've been waiting for. How can we confirm this???????

Martin, first thank you and second, anyone, if not cut by ships, what then?

Martin said:

Egypt: No ships present when internet cable cut


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Associated Press , THE JERUSALEM POST Feb. 3, 2008


No ships were present when two marine cables carrying much of the Middle East's internet traffic were severed, announced Egypt's Ministry of Communications Sunday, contrary to earlier speculation about the causes of the cut.

The ministry had originally stated that a ship dropping its anchor on the two key cables was most likely responsible for Wednesday's cut in service that robbed Egypt, Saudi Arabia and India of much of their internet.

"A marine transport committee investigated the traffic of ships in the area, 12 hours before and after the malfunction, where the cables are located to figure out the possibility of being cut by a passing vessel and found out there were no passing ships at that time," said the statement.

The ministry added that the location, 8.3 kilometers (5 miles) from the port of Alexandria, was in a restricted area so ships would not have been allowed there to begin with.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1201867288121&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/Printe

Click to expand...

Navy seals at work?