Ship’s anchor cut Gulf Internet cable

[sabra]

Source: AFP

CAIRO - A ship’s anchor severed one of the undersea Internet cables damaged last week, causing outages that continue to affect business across the Middle East and South Asia, the cable’s owner said on Thursday.

India’s Flag telecom said in a statement that the cut to the Falcon cable between the United Arab Emirates and Oman “is due to a ship anchor... an abandoned anchor weighing five to six tonnes was found.”

Flag-part of India’s Reliance Communications-said the repair work on the cable, which broke on February 1, was continuing despite rough weather and was expected to be completed by Sunday.

The company said that repair work to its other Flag Europe Asia cable, one of two that were cut off Egypt’s Mediterranean coast, was continuing and would also be completed by Sunday.

Technicians aboard the repair ship were using remotely operated submarine vehicles to check the damage.

Read more: http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNew.asp?xfile=data/theworld/2008/February/theworld_February219.xml§ion=theworld

[ORDagnabbit]

1. all 5 cables? right... and there were no ships anywhere near the first cable break.

[ursi]

11. lol!

[mainegreen]

2. Lies!

Snorks did it.

[Robbien]

3. Is that same abandoned anchor going to be blamed for the other three cuts

Sure has been one very busy abandoned anchor.

I guess you can never leave your anchors unattended and not expect them to be up to no good.

[quispquake]

4. It's the "Magic Abandoned Anchor!!!"

Quick, call Arlen Spector!!!

[tblue37]

5. Abandoned, unoccupied anchors are the Devil's workshop. n/t

[jeanruss]

6. www.waynemadsenreports.com

I think there were 8 or 9 cables cut in various bodies of water. Good article at the above.

[aquart]

7. Wayne Madsen? Right.

[ixion]

8. so one anchor cut all the cables?

yeah, right. :eyes:

[stillcool]

9. This story just gets better...

every day... a real whodunit?

Ships did not cause Internet cable damage
http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNew.asp?xfile=data/theworld/2008/February/theworld_February77.xml§ion=theworld&col
Source: AFP
3 Frbruary 2008
CAIRO - Damage to undersea Internet cables in the Mediterranean that hit business across the Middle East and South Asia was not caused by ships, Egypt’s communications ministry said on Sunday, ruling out earlier reports.

The transport ministry added that footage recorded by onshore video cameras of the location of the cables showed no maritime traffic in the area when the cables were damaged.

‘The ministry’s maritime transport committee reviewed footage covering the period of 12 hours before and 12 hours after the cables were cut and no ships sailed the area,’ a statement said.

‘The area is also marked on maps as a no-go zone and it is therefore ruled out that the damage to the cables was caused by ships,’ the statement added.

Two cables were damaged earlier this week in the Mediterranean sea and another off the coast of Dubai, causing widespread disruption to Internet and international telephone services in Egypt, Gulf Arab states and South Asia.

A fourth cable linking Qatar to the United Arab Emirates was damaged on Sunday causing yet more disruptions, telecommunication provider Qtel said.

Earlier reports said that the damage had been caused by ships that had been diverted off their usual route because of bad weather.

Egypt’s communication and information technology ministry said it would report its findings to the owners of the two damaged Mediterranean cables, FLAG Telecom and SEA-ME-WE4.

A repair ship was expected to begin work to fix the two Mediterranean cables on Tuesday.

http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNew.asp?xfile...

3rd FLAG Undersea Cable Cut, Now Between UAE and Oman



Two days after cable cuts which "cut off Iran" and affected the rest of the Middle East and West Asia but left communications in Israel and Iraq "intact", another cable owned by the same British company is severed, once again plunging the region into "Internet darkness". Image: FLAG's Europe-Asia "FEA" undersea cable network

Omar Sultan, chief executive of Dubai's Internet Service Provider "DU", said on Friday that an undersea cable had been cut in the Persian Gulf, causing severe phone line disruptions and making worse the already existing Internet outage across large parts of the Middle East and West Asia after two other undersea cables owned by the same British company were cut this week in the Mediterranean Sea 8.3 kilometers (5 miles) north of Alexandria, Egypt.

Mr Sultan said that the incident was "very unusual." He said it was not known how the underwater cable, owned by British FLAG FALCON company, which runs between the United Arab Emirates and Oman, had been damaged. DU said in a press release that the cause of the incident "had not yet been identified."

The only 2 countries that were unaffected were Israel and Iraq, the only two close Anglo-American allies in the region, both remaining completely unaffected by the cable cuts, leading to theories for the causes of the cuts, which have so far been given as having been caused by ships dragging their anchors across the cables. The fact that two rare incidents have happened in the same week, and both with cables owned by the same company, on either sides of Israel and the importance of the Internet to telecommunications and business, lends suspicion to the events.
http://mathaba.net/rss/?x=580589

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyName=disaster_recovery&articleId=9060339&taxonomyId=151&intsrc=kc_top
Cable damage in Mediterranean disrupts Internet in Mideast
Repairs could take days; companies try to reroute traffic
By Matt Hamblen

January 30, 2008 (Computerworld) Wide areas of the Middle East experienced Internet disruptions today after two underwater cables were damaged in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Egypt, according to reports.

Michael Coe, a spokesman for AT&T Inc., said that two cables were cut and that AT&T has been routing traffic around the damaged area. One of the cables is owned by U.K.-based Flag Telecom Group Ltd., and the other is owned by a consortium of several companies that includes AT&T called SEA-ME-WE4. The consortium is investigating the damage and arranging for repairs, he said.
--------------------------------
A Verizon spokeswoman said that the two cuts occurred at separate times, with the first to the SEA-ME-WE4 at 11:30 p.m. yesterday (EST) and the second at 2:30 a.m. (EST) today. She speculated that the cuts may have been caused by a ship dragging an anchor; the consortium is still investigating.

Fiber optic cable
GASLMLTV, 40-ton DAH
4–96 fibers
Slotted core design, 4-fiber ribbonDouble steel wire armoring

[ursi]

10. good rundown of theories here: blame it on the big telcos

http://www.ilovebonnie.net/2008/02/06/submarine-cables-subsidiares-and-subversion/

[truthisfreedom]

12. Plausible denial. You think the CIA would cut a cable and not plant evidence of an accident?

Think again.