| 21 Dec 2008 |
|
Internet service badly disrupted
- Text size
MUSCAT: Internet service in Oman and other Gulf countries was badly disrupted yesterday and OmantelOmantel
officials attributed failure of undersea cables in the Mediterranean Sea for the fault. Residents said Internet service was either non-existent or very slow. The gravity of the outage varied from area to area and according to the service provider.
Three cables linking Italy and Egypt failed for as yet unknown reasons, a senior Reliance GlobalCom official in Dubai said yesterday. Internet service between Europe and the Middle East was also disrupted yesterday. France Telecom said break in three undersea cables had disrupted telephone traffic between Europe and the Asia-Middle East region.
The situation may not improve before Christmas Day and communications may not be back to normal until New Year's Eve, the French company said in a statement.
Shaheed Al Sateeh, Middle East sales director for Reliance GlobalCom, said: "We know three cables have been cut. We still don't know why or where. They cover all the Middle East and India and other countries."
"We have no more information. A ship has been sent out to locate the place where the cables were cut," he said.
Egypt's state news agency Mena reported that the cuts happened off the coast of Sicily at 10am (0800GMT) yesterday.
Reliance GlobalCom has directed a submarine cable repair company to head to the region to fix the cables, Mena reported.
The agency reported that services were being rerouted to backup cables and satellite to compensate for the failures.
The services are expected to improve by around 0330GMT today, Mena added. France Telecom said the breach happened "between Italy and Tunisia on sections linking Sicily to Egypt."
"Traffic from Europe towards Algeria and Tunisia was not affected but from Europe towards the Middle East and Asia is more or less interrupted," the French national telecoms operator said.
The company said it had alerted the Raymond Croze, one of its two maintenance ships present in the Mediterranean zone.
France Telecom said the situation is likely to improve from December 25 and return to normal on December 31.
x
DISCLAIMER
Zawya is a distributor (and not a publisher) of content supplied by third parties and subscribers. Any opinions, advice, statements, services, offers, or other information or content expressed or made available by those third parties, including information providers, subscribers or other users of the Service, are those of the respective author(s) or distributor(s) and not of the Company. The Company neither endorses nor is responsible for the accuracy or reliability of any opinion, advice or statement made on the Service by anyone other than authorized Service employee spokespersons while acting in their official capacities. The Company is not responsible for any infringement of intellectual property rights or breach of any applicable law or regulation, including regulation in relation to financial services or the distribution of financial products, defamation, data protection, telecommunications (including regulations relating to excessive use, spamming or other abusive activities) or obscene, offensive or illegal content). Under no circumstances will the Company be liable for any loss or damage caused by a member's reliance on information obtained through the Service. It is the responsibility of member to evaluate the accuracy, completeness or usefulness of any information, opinion, advice or other content available through the Service. Please seek the advice of professionals, as appropriate, regarding the evaluation of any specific information, opinion, advice or other content.
Read the full Member Agreement
http://www.zawya.com/legal/NewsLetter.cfm?name=disclaimer
Zawya is a distributor (and not a publisher) of content supplied by third parties and subscribers. Any opinions, advice, statements, services, offers, or other information or content expressed or made available by those third parties, including information providers, subscribers or other users of the Service, are those of the respective author(s) or distributor(s) and not of the Company. The Company neither endorses nor is responsible for the accuracy or reliability of any opinion, advice or statement made on the Service by anyone other than authorized Service employee spokespersons while acting in their official capacities. The Company is not responsible for any infringement of intellectual property rights or breach of any applicable law or regulation, including regulation in relation to financial services or the distribution of financial products, defamation, data protection, telecommunications (including regulations relating to excessive use, spamming or other abusive activities) or obscene, offensive or illegal content). Under no circumstances will the Company be liable for any loss or damage caused by a member's reliance on information obtained through the Service. It is the responsibility of member to evaluate the accuracy, completeness or usefulness of any information, opinion, advice or other content available through the Service. Please seek the advice of professionals, as appropriate, regarding the evaluation of any specific information, opinion, advice or other content.
Read the full Member Agreement
http://www.zawya.com/legal/NewsLetter.cfm?name=disclaimer
Access to this article is subject to specific terms and condition.
Loading ...Free Newsletter
Get the latest news from Telecoms & IT and other Free newsletters.
Post a Comment
1.1 Contain any material which is libelous or defamatory of any person, is obscene, offensive, hateful or inflammatory or causes damage to the reputation of any person or organisation.
1.2 Promote sexually explicit material, violence, discrimination based on race, sex, religion, nationality, disability, sexual orientation or age or any illegal activity.
1.3 Be made in breach of any legal duty owed to a third party, such as a contractual duty or a duty of confidence.
1.4 Be threatening, abuse or invade another's privacy, or cause annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety.
1.5 Be used to impersonate any person, to misrepresent your identity or affiliation with any person, or be likely to deceive any person.
1.6 Give the impression that they represent Zawya.
1.7 Advocate, promote or assist any unlawful act such as (by way of example only) copyright infringement or computer misuse.