Reuters: Repairs start on undersea cable

Source: Reuters/The Globe and Mail

Repairs start on undersea cable

BANGALORE — Repair work has started on one of three
broken undersea cables providing data services to parts
of the Middle East and Asia, a cable operator said, and
a repair ship was expected to reach a second cable on
Tuesday.

Undersea cable connections were disrupted off Egypt's
northern coast last week when segments of two international
cables were cut, affecting Internet access in the Gulf
region and South Asia, and forcing service providers to
re-route traffic.

A third undersea cable, FALCON, was reported broken off the
coast of the United Arab Emirates on Friday and Indian-owned
cable network operator FLAG Telecom said on Tuesday a ship
had reached the location and repair work had started.

“FLAG repair team is operating in extreme weather conditions
to ensure timely repairs,” the operator, a unit of India's
No. 2 mobile operator Reliance Communications, said on its
website.

FLAG said another repair ship was likely to reach the location
of the FLAG Europe-Asia cable, one of the two that were reported
cut off the coast of Egypt.

<more>

Read more: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080205.wgtunderdasea0205/BNStory/Technology

Interesting that they never mention how they were cut, and all at the same time in at least two separate geographical locations.

Something rotten here....

The Iran Oil Bourse was scheduled for the week when they were cut.

http://www.energybulletin.net/39844.html

Will the delay have a big impact on the dollar?

And did any of these cables even have much effect
on Internet traffic to Iran? I read elsewhere that
most of Iran's limited Internet access arrives by
satellite (but don't know if that's true or not).

Tesha

unfortunately.
(And you are right about the fact that, contrary to what many posters here have claimed, Iran did not "completely" lose access to the Internet).

go with our instinct that says 1 or 2 cables cut hmmm...maybe but 3-4 around the same time period should just be considered coincidence.

After the last 8 years and all of the lies and misinformation that has come out you are saying that it's hysteria to question the fact that 4 cables in different locations were cut in a region that is highly volatile and no one knows how or why but we should just accept it?

Just askin?:shrug:

You know, there was once a time when *ALL THREE OF MY CARS*
developed problems with the parking brake cables within a
month or two of each other. I would have liked to blame it
on the cars conspiring against me, but it was just a
particularly weird string of unrelated failures.

Sometimes, things really are coincidences. Sometimes, there's
an external cause which isn't apparent until the repairs are
done (such as a design flaw in the cables, etc.).

And yes, sometimes its information warfare. But let's just
wait and see, ehh? The fact that at least two of the cables
are being repaired seems to argue that if it's information
warfare, it wasn't all that well thought-through.

Tesha

Just because someone posts on the Internet that Iran is completely cut off as a result of multiple broken cables doesn't mean its true. And it wasn't true.

Even if the Iranian government still has satellite internet service, this could be seen as "sending a signal" to the Iranian people i.e. we can cut you off at will. A way of sapping civilian morale.

Arabian News:
http://www.arabianbusiness.com/510232-flag-plays-down-net-blackout-conspiracy-theories?ln=en

...It is not clear how badly Iran's internet access has been affected by the cable breaks.

The Iranian embassy in Abu Dhabi told ArabianBusiness.com that "everything is fine", but internet connectivity reports on the web, citing a router in Tehran, appear to indicate that there is currently no connection to the outside world.

No one at the US embassy in Abu Dhabi was immediately available to comment.

A spokesperson for Flag said the cause of the breaks will not be known until repair ships reach the site of the damage.

The spokesperson admitted it did seem like a bit of a coincidence that all four were damaged within such a short space of time, but said it would be difficult to find the exact location of the cables.

"I think it is doubtful ," the spokesperson told ArabianBusiness.com.

Repair ships are expected to arrive at the site of the breaks in the Mediterranean on Tuesday and Friday.

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http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2008/02/4th-undersea--1.html



Conspiracy theories emerge after internet cables cut
By Simon Lauder

Posted Mon Feb 4, 2008 3:14pm AEDT



'Information warfare?'

It was assumed a ship's anchor severed the cables, but now that is in doubt and the conspiracy theories are coming out.

Egypt's Transport Ministry says video surveillance shows no ships were in the area at the time of the incident.

Online columnist Ian Brockwell says the cables may have been cut deliberately in an attempt by the US and Israel to deprive Iran of internet access.

Others back up that theory, saying the Pentagon has a secret strategy called 'information warfare'.

But Mr Budde says it is far more likely to be a coincidence.

"It is absolutely strange, of course, that that happens. At the moment it really looks like bad luck rather than anything else," he said.

Telecommunications professor at the University of Melbourne, Peter Gerrand, says Australia is in a far better position than India to withstand a cable breakage.

"We've got, in effect, five really major separate cables, each with high capacity, most of which have plans for upgrading their capacity in the next few years," he said.

Professor Gerrand does not believe Australia is vulnerable to the types of major disruptions that India and Egypt have seen.

"I gather India has most of its capacity on two cables - one's to its west and one to its east - so when the western cable got cut near Egypt, all this traffic had to then pass through a single cable and that's what's caused these very huge delays," he said....>

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/02/04/2153974.htm?section=world

\

So IF the cables were NOT cut, what are these repair ships actually doing?

http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/02/04/0158249


http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/02/04/0158249

...The cause of damage is not yet known, but ArabianBusiness.com has been told unofficially the problem is related to the power system and not the result of a ship's anchor cutting the cable, as is thought to be the case in the other three incidents.

If you wanted to tap the cable, but didn't have the technical abiiities of, for example, the US submarine Jimmy Carter, you could cut the cable at point A, and while it was idle, install a tap at another point.

If they are copper, no problem, yet you need to bet in the light channel to get the data.

It is also a huge amount going through at all times so you need serious hardware to process even a small part of it.

It turns out that if you simply bend the fiber into
a tight-enough radius, it will defeat total internal
reflection and the fiber will "leak" light. At some
critical radius, there's enough light leaking for
you to tap it but not so much leaking that the link
goes down.

It's believed that this is well within the capabilities
of the NSA and/or CIA.

Tesha

my understanding it is actually 4 cables now. I think the 4th was impacting India the most.

The reports of Iran's outage have been grossly exaggerated. I play on-line backgammon with people from Iran. They were saying service is slow but they only had about a total of four hours down time.

Here is a link to another article...it seems to be hard to find good info about the matter:

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory?id=4215403

What reports of "Iran's outage" are you talking about? There was no report about "Iran's outage", only some speculation from Mr Paul Joseph Watson, a twenty-something assistent of Alex Jones at "Prison Planet". I have no idea why the websites of "Mathaba" and "Global Research" would feature it without further comment, but they apparently do.

The only source I have seen cited for Iran being "cut off" is the website http://www.internettrafficreport.com/. According to this website, the router "router1.iust.ac.ir" is down and the "traffic index" for this router is zero. Which means, according to this very website: "The "traffic index" is a score from 0 to 100 where 0 is "slow" and 100 is "fast"." FWIW.

What's with the tone? Ok, so maybe there were no reports. How about just a general air of speculation (which seems to have been greatly exaggerated)?

However, in spite of them not being actual cited "reports" one can easily see the innuendos regarding Iran in this very thread. For instance, speculation regarding the Iran Oil Borse. Plus, editorial comments:

"Online columnist Ian Brockwell says the cables may have been cut deliberately in an attempt by the US and Israel to deprive Iran of internet access.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/02/04/2153974.htm?section=world

I'll try not to commit any more transgressions regarding fictional "reports" so as not to annoy you.

I hope somebody will be there for him.

Good one!!

through US and British servers...

...

The region has now been mostly patched up with connectivity however is now even more reliant upon another undersea cable to Britain and the USA.

...

http://mathaba.net/news/?x=580907

... the countries with the BIG investment in signals/communications tapping ...

Ah well, just another piece of good fortune for the NSA/CIA/FBI/MI6/MI5/xyz ...