Internet Failure hits 2 continents. Extra Credit!

Ashley Giannini
January 31, 2008

In class a couple weeks ago we spoke about the under the sea cable that was damaged. This cause many businesses to be at a standstill and left many people to cope without the internet. Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain Pakistan and India, are all experiencing problems. There is not a full understanding of what happened to the undersea cables but it is though to be from a boat anchor. Some countries have backup satellites in case of something like this happening but the backup is not up to date so it is leaving many people frustrated with how slow it is. The failure of the cable is a major ordeal because it is the communiation line between Europe and the Middle East.

The head of an Egyptian Internet service provider called the situation a "wake-up call" for the region, which he said is too dependent on underground lines and does not have a strong enough back-up system. This allows much room for improvement and maybe is a good thing becuase it gets people to realize something needs to be done about this problem. With technology, no one should depend on only one source for the internet. As we all know, when you need the internet or technology the most is when it will fail and you must be prepared for a backup. The article stated from when the time this incident happened, it may take up to a couple weeks to fix. That is no good for business who rely on the internet as their income. Imagine not getting paid for 2 weeks. Some businesses will be effected more than others, but for the ones going paycheck to paycheck will be getting a rude awakening, and may even go under.

Along with the internet being disrupted, the article stated there problems with TV and phone lines as well. In this day in age, our community without phone, TV, or internet is a nightmare. Coping with that would be hard, but not long ago this was how life was. It makes people realize how good they have it living in this time era, and just how much innovation there has been in technology recently!