Saturday, December 20, 2008

Oman Internet down Friday night - cable cut

Folks,

 

Those of you in Oman may have noticed that the internet is effectively out of action here today. Why?

 

Well, last night, Omantel’s main internet cable was cut. As a result, internet access for the whole country is very, very slow, and at the moment it’s impossible to even log in to gmail, blogger, and US based servers in general.

 

No word on how long it’ll take to repair the cable… but right now it is a real pain.

 

3 comments:

  1. Dragon,

    Your sources are slightly inaccurate.

    The BBC is carrying the story, here:

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7792688.stm

    Essentially, there are 4 main fibre lines linking Europe and Middle East (and in turn Asia) - 3 of them were severed in suspected seismic activity on Friday. About 13:00 Muscat time yesterday, Friday, the net went haywire.

    This will effect not only Internet, but International Phone Calls and corporate networks as well. In fact I wonder if International Visa/Mastercard customer's cards will work, but I don't know how the credit card ATM networks work. I guess the same would go for someone trying to draw money out of a bank machine here with a card from a North American or European bank - if the network can't be reached to check available funds, then is it likely cash will be issued?

    The key thing to stress here is that it's not Omantel, it's bigger than that. Customers across the middle East and Southern Asia will be feeling the effects of this.

    ReplyDelete
  2. "France Telecom said its marine cable division would repair the damaged lines, but warned that service would not be back to normal until December 31."
    "France Telecom released estimates showing the UAE has lost almost 70 per cent of its traffic capacity, while Qatar and Saudi Arabia were also down by more than 50 per cent. The island nation of the Maldives is in total blackout, while India, home to a call centre and outsourcing industry that is dependent on international communications, has lost 80 per cent of its international connections."
    "just a handful link the Middle East to the outside world. The small number of backup options mean freak occurrences like Friday’s cut have a disproportionate impact."
    From today's issue of The National
    http://www.thenational.ae/article/20081220/BUSINESS/622695495/1005/rss

    ReplyDelete
  3. That's the one thing I will truly miss about the US of A: affordable access to unlimited, uncensored and simply fast internet.

    ReplyDelete

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