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Another Major Cable Break Leaves Thousands Without Net Access

by Rob Walker | February 4, 2008 at 10:51 am | 383 views | add comment

A third (or fourth, depending how you count the lines and service disruption) cable connecting Europe and Asia was destroyed, leaving many people across both continents without internet.
The continued destruction of the major cables has led to widespread conspiracy theories across the net, which the cable owners have denied.

Internet services in Qatar have been seriously disrupted because of damage to an undersea telecoms cable linking the Gulf state to the UAE, the fourth such incident in less than a week.Qatar Telecom (Qtel) said on Sunday the cable was damaged between the Qatari island of Haloul and the UAE island of Das on Friday.

The two cable breaks last week put massive pressure on Internet and telecom communications in the Middle East and South East Asia. Could it get any worse? Apparently so. A third cable break, for instance.And that’s exactly what happened. With repairs on the first breaks not due to begin until tomorrow, another one, known as the Falcon cable, has snapped, according to the BBC.

Flag Telecom on Monday played down conspiracy theories over the recent damage to undersea cables that has seriously disrupted internet and international telecoms services across the region.

There's all sorts of conspiracy theories out there. But who can blame them, four cables is a lot![q
url="http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/02/04/2153974.htm?section=world"]When
two cables in the Mediterranean were severed last week, it was put down
to a mishap with a stray anchor.
Now a third cable has been cut,
this time near Dubai. That, along with new evidence that ships' anchors
are not to blame, has sparked theories about more sinister forces that
could be at work.[/q][q
url="http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/02/02/145231"]"Here is an
interesting world map of various Internet connections,
showing how it took just one vessel to inflict the damage that brought
down the internet for millions."[/q][q
url="http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/2/3/163147/0811/479/449053"]Let
me start off by stating that I'm not putting this up as a conspiracy
theory diary. Let me then follow that comment with my belief that I've
been following a couple of diaries over the last couple of days that
were pseduo/actual/conspiracy theory diaries regarding the recent spate
of undersea internet cable breakages in the Middle East that "appeared"
to isolate Iran from an internet point of view.[/q][q
url="http://notanotherconspiracy.blogspot.com/"]From Previous
Snooze/News statements, We were lead to Believe that Multiple Ships
dropping or Dragging their Anchors, Cut the Undersea Fiber Optic
cables. While some of us 'Did not' believe these to be an accurate
account of the incidents,Many did and still do.[/q][q
url="http://www.almasry-alyoum.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=92296"]Suspicions
that the undersea internet cables were deliberately severed gained more
credence yesterday following Flag Falcon Telecom's announcement that a
third undersea cable between the United Arab Emirates and the Sultanate
of Oman has been cut a few days after two cables were cut 12 kilometers
off the Mediterranean costal city of Alexandria, which brought the
internet service and international communication lines down in many
countries, including Egypt[/q]