Iran's Internet OUT: NOT

by Dylan Bowman on Monday, 04 February 2008
INTERNET DISRUPTION: The Falcon network runs from Egypt to India, linking 11 countries in the region.

"It seems now to be way beyond the realm of coincidence that a further 4th critical international communications cable should break within seven days," one ArabianBusiness.com reader commented.

"Clearly Iran, who was most affected, would gain nothing from such an action and is perhaps the target of those responsible," said another reader.

Those theories were fuelled further on Monday when Egypt said damage to the cables in the Mediterranean Sea was not caused by ships, as previously thought.

Egypt's Transport Ministry said footage recorded by onshore video cameras of the location of the cables shows no maritime traffic in the area when the cables were damaged.

"The ministry's maritime transport committee reviewed footage covering the period of 12 hours before and 12 hours after the cables were cut and no ships sailed the area," a statement by the Communications Ministry said.

"The area is also marked on maps as a no-go zone and it is therefore ruled out that the damage to the cables was caused by ships."

It is not clear how badly Iran's internet access has been affected by the cable breaks.

The Iranian embassy in Abu Dhabi told ArabianBusiness.com that "everything is fine", but internet connectivity reports on the web, citing a router in Tehran, appear to indicate that there is currently no connection to the outside world.

Two intercontinental cables connecting Europe and Asia were cut off the coast of Egypt on Wednesday, followed by breaks in two more cables off the UAE coast on Friday. Flag owns two of the affected cables.

The initial breaks affected internet access and international calls in Egypt, the Gulf and south Asia, while disruption resulting from damage to the latter two was centred around the Gulf region. The location of the breaks and short space of time in which they have happened has sparked fears the cables were intentionally damaged by the US and Israel to deprive Iran of internet access.


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Internet crisis deepens
Third undersea cable break between UAE and Oman adds to web woes after two breaks just days earlier.


SOURCE: FROM EMAIL:

BACKGROUND

The economic problems this will cause Iran are enormous.
It also restricts their command and control of Qods.
They are opperating BLIND in many cases now.
And must find other means for com.
In country, Iranian connection should work fine.

INTERNET STATUS:

UPDATE: All of Iran not down, rerouted and slow.
http://www.nic.ir/
http://www.iranet.ir/
http://www.sharif.ac.ir/

Several Iranians have checked in Internet working fine.
But it is being rerouted through Singapore...

1 Polyethylene cover 2,4 Stranded steel armour wires 3,5 Tar-soaked nylon yarn 6 Polycarbonate insulator 7 Copper sheath 8 Protective core 9 Optical fibres Not to scale

Gerald
5 cable cuts
Cable damage hits one million Internet users in UAE
Asma Ali Zain (Staff Reporter)

4 February 2008

SOURCE:
A total of five cables being operated by two submarine cable operators have been damaged with a fault in each. These are SeaMeWe-4 (South East Asia-Middle East-Western Europe-4) near Penang, Malaysia, the FLAG Europe-Asia near Alexandria, FLAG near the Dubai coast, FALCON near Bandar Abbas in Iran and SeaMeWe-4, also near Alexandria