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Severed cables disrupt internet
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by azer | January 30, 2008 at 05:41 pm
693 views | 15 Recommendations | 3 comments
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Some years ago a train crashed in a tunnel in Pennsylvania. A fire burned in the tunnel, which was used by virtually every major North American network service provider, and seriously damaged all the fibre optic cables. This resulted in a dramatic loss of network bandwidth.
As all the network providers were forced to reroute traffic, the outage had a dramatic impact on users as far away as California. People like myself in Montreal, Canada experienced serious network delays for some weeks. Eventually the tunnel was repaired and the fibre optic cable was replaced - and everything went back to normal.
Reports of these events are becoming increasingly common. Here is one from the Middle East:
Neither of the cable operators have confirmed the cause or location of the outage but some reports suggest it was caused by a ship's anchor near the port of Alexandria in Egypt.One Indian internet service provider, Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd (VSNL), linked the problems in India to the disruption in Egypt.
Egypt's Telecommunications Ministry said it would probably take several days for internet services to return to normal following the disruption on Wednesday.
On the bright side: Network capacity throughout the world, for the most part, is growing rapidly. On the balance bandwidth is increasing daily. The new networks being added can handle much of the excess load when a nearby network is down for repairs. For this reason we can expect, eventually, to suffer little or no effects from these incidents at some point in the future.
Hopefully that time will come soon for more people around the world.
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Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (3)
at 16:51 on January 31st, 2008
Hello Azer,
Good story! I guess it wouldn't have affected those on satellite - if they have those services over there. I enjoyed your commentary and the fact that you didn't just cut and paste the entire article, leaving it at that.
Well written, though I'd like to have seen more commentary from you - what you think about it - perhaps have done a little more research, since the reporter's creed hasn't yet been fulfilled in the story:
I always throw in "how" as well. ;)
Scanning other sources for the same story, will give you additional perspectives too. But as I said, I still enjoyed your story plus commentary - good job!
I found these photographs for you on other publications that mention the same story.
Image Sources:
AFP
NDTV.com
~ Swan
at 20:16 on January 31st, 2008
Thanks for the encouragement!
There was another story that I highlighted which contained some misleading information (Linux does not have a better user interface than Windows as stated in the article.) On the other hand, the speaker was stating his oppinion so I decided to let it go. Perhaps, now that you've encouraged me a little, I might make more comment.
I have no problem with the "Five W's" as we were taught in elementary school - now that you mention it I'll be happy to pay attention to them.
Thanks again,
Take Care,
Sam.
p.s. Can I write an original article on my own site (such as a tour of the Linux desktop, for example,) and hightlight it as a news story? What about really interesting articles that are posted on the web? They're not news but sometimes I'd like to highlight one. Is that allowed?
Thanks again for your encouragement.
--Sam.
at 06:23 on February 1st, 2008
Much better! Yeah, I'd like to see a tour of the Linux desktop, especially since the penguin is starting to show up in storebought machines (therefore becoming "real" to more people). Highlighting your own stuff is fine; also, you can compose the article in Highlight and simultaneously publish it to your blog and to NP. Give a shout if you need a hand.