Comments on: Internet down. Again.

By: ITwatcher

ITwatcher — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 14:35:58 +0000

It wasn’t one cable or an issue of weak infrastructure – six cables serving the Middle East were brought down.
http://archaeologyversusdiplomacy.blogspot.com/search/label/submarine%20cables

By: Mike

Mike — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 11:29:08 +0000

Do you reckon FLAG & SeaWeedME are going to pass the buck and blame the cuts on shark attacks perhaps? An act of God = no compensation for us consumers.

By: Loki

Loki — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 08:54:25 +0000

El Reg reports some cables should be up within a week. Also pours cold water on any conspiracy theories:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/02/08/seabed_cable_break_fix_forecast/

By: Mike

Mike — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 06:43:35 +0000

The Egyptian government has released a statement saying Internet cables damaged in the Mediterranean Sea were not caused by ships, revoking earlier claims.

In today’s press.

By: Mike

Mike — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 13:27:34 +0000

I was told that the two submarine cables that were initially cut in two were a mile apart running parallel to one another. Any truth to that? Perhaps during the repair they might install a splitter so a certain 3rd party can easily analyze voice/data traffic from this part of the world without having to intercept individual providers.. hmm…

By: Loki

Loki — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 08:43:51 +0000

Looking at the slashdot comments, people obviously talking about Iran. And that this is a precursor to military action. For me that seems very strange. The precursor to military action in the past has been to send in a handful of F-117s and take out power stations and communication centres.

I’m not sure how getting rid of email and web browsing is militarily significant. Still it is too much of a coincidence.

By: Loki

Loki — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 08:37:00 +0000

I hear that! I was having this conversation with someone yesterday. They asked me if I thought this was deliberate.

The way I see it there was either a 0.000000000001 in a hundred chance of this happening or it was deliberate

(0.001 in a hundred being the chance of ONE cable being cut- if one can use typical telco SLA for this type of circuit as an assumption)

By: ehsan

ehsan — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 08:05:43 +0000

Fourth cable dead in less than a week: http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/02/04/0158249

I’m not one to shout conspiracy, but I know this industry and it’s absolutely impossible for this to be a coincidence. Something bigger is at play here…

By: SamT

SamT — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 21:33:34 +0000

3G is still very much in it's infancy here in Bahrain. Both providers Zain and Batelco offer packages with download restrictions. Zain offers 1.8Mbps and Batelco offers 3.6Mbps. Both will ask you to purchase their USB 3G Modems which are branded and locked at ridiculous prices. Batelco's modem 79BD and Zain's at 105BD. I bought mine off ebay for 35 Dinars and it's unlocked so I've used it on Zain and Batelco's network. It's a PCMCIA 3G card which means I can easily share my connection over a LAN with 3rd party 3G routers that both Linksys + Dlink produce. The USB modems are difficult to share. Connection speeds - I tested using the Bahrain pyramid on Speedtest are: Zain: Advertised 1.8 - I get 1.1 to 1.4 Batelco: Advertised 3.6 - I get 1.8 to 2.4 Just a note for those interested in 3G as an alternative to ADSL. I would stick to ADSL for now. I've found that 3G connections are not as reliable as services delivered over copper POTS, and the quality of the link is always changing due to external factors, and most importantly round trip times are poor - so latency sensitive applications such as VoIP, skype etc is poor with a noticeable delay. ps. I tested my connections before the internet outage.

By: Ahmed

Ahmed — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 18:41:41 +0000

Sidd,

the 3G connection is unlimited.. BD45 per month. No subscription required, you can for example get something similar to Easy or SimSim, put the BD45 in it, and use it endlessly, or settle for bandwidth based options.

Al Jawal’s competitor, Mobily, charges only BD35 for an unlimited 3G connection at a theoretical speed of 7.2Mbps. Lower priced bandwidth based options are also available.

No mandatory purchase of any kind of equipment is required. But you obviously need a 3G router or a 3G card for your laptop. You can get these from the service providers, the local market, or Ebay !!

I say theoretical speeds because i wasn’t able to test it since i only got when the ship anchor problem happened. I’ll update you about the speed in a few weeks time once the problem is sorted out.