Damaged Undersea Cables Cause Internet Disruptions in Middle East and Asia
Business and blogs in the Middle East, Asia, and North Africa ground to a halt after damage to two undersea communications cables in the Mediterranean crippled Internet services. Egypt was hit particularly hard, with 70 percent of Internet users suffering latency issues while high tech business in the United Arab Emirates saw their operations jeopardized. Telecom companies will reroute traffic through the Pacific until service can be restored. An official from an Egyptian Internet service provider was quoted as saying this was a “wake-up call” to a region heavily dependent on underground lines without much of a back-up infrastructure.
Mark Lloyd issued a similar call for government investment in a robust and redundant broadband infrastructure for the United States in his recent report, Ubiquity Requires Redundancy.
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