Online services may have ground to a halt but the real impact of last week's Internet outage was negligible, reports Reem Leila As users opened their computers on Friday morning many thought their inability to access the Internet was just a temporary slow down in the service as ISPs conducted routine maintenance to their servers. Unfortunately, it soon became apparent the whole country was Internet-less. Internet communications between Europe, the Middle East and Asia were seriously disrupted for the second time in a year after submarine cables 130km off Sicily were severed. Of the six undersea cables disrupted, only three cables -- FLAG FEA, SEA-ME-WE3 (South-East Asia-Middle East-Western Europe), and SEA-ME-WE4 disrupted all of Egypt's international online services. Millions of people across the Middle East and Asia also lost access when the major Internet pipeline between Egypt and Italy was cut. ISPs across the region, including in the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, reported problems, and international telephone calls had to be rerouted. Raafat Hendi, from the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, says the SEA-ME-WE3 was severed at the same time as the SEA-ME-WE 4, the FLAG FEA cable and the GO-1 cable. SEA-ME-WE 4 is divided into four segments with 39 landing points, the 11th and 12th of which are in Egypt. "Despite this being an international cable affecting many other Gulf and Arab countries," says Hendi, "we are the closest to the cable and so have greater responsibility. We are working as fast as we can." Amr Badawi, vice-president of Telecom Egypt (TE), reports that work began on Sunday to fix the undersea cables. The cause of the break remains unknown. Some seismic activity was reported near Malta shortly before the cut was detected and the US Geological Survey recorded a 5.9 magnitude quake in the Northern Mid-Atlantic, about 1,100 miles northwest of Portugal, though it is not clear whether the two events are connected. "The damage to the undersea cables, owned by different consortiums caused varying degrees of disruption from Zambia to India and Taiwan. The situation had improved in India and Singapore by Sunday," stated Badawi. How long it will take the robot to locate the cables is anyone's guess. If they were damaged by an anchor they may well have been dragged several kilometres from their original site. Once located, the robotised submarine vessel will bring the affected parts aboard its mothership, the Raymond Croze, for repairs. "It is likely that SEA-ME-WE4 will be fully operational by 25 December and SEA-ME-WE3 by the end of the year," predicts Badawi. In the meantime, says Tarek Kamel, Minister of Communications and Information Technology, Egyptian Internet services will be switched to alternative routes. By Sunday more than 80 per cent of Egypt's Internet capacity had been restored, although there remained a "tangible impact on call centres". The Internet breakdown had little serious impact on the country's stock market and banks and the bulk of the disruption was felt by personal rather than institutional users. The worst disruption occurred over the weekend, when many government offices and companies are closed. In vital sectors Internet traffic was redirected to alternative cables and satellites. While most communication officials insist there is enough spare capacity in the network the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology has nonetheless urged individuals to reduce their online time until the cables are fixed. "Capacity is sufficient for business and government bodies. Individuals, though, should avoid downloading programmes," said Akil Bashir, chairman of Telecom Egypt (TE). "These three circuits account for 90 per cent of the traffic and we're going to see more international phone calls dropping and large-scale degradation in the quality of the local Internet," warns Bashir. When a 7.1 magnitude earthquake broke nine undersea cables between Taiwan and the Philippines in December 2006 it took 49 days for crews on 11 giant cable-laying ships to fix all the damage points. "Normally you can expect to see one major break per cable per year. For this to happen twice in one year, on the same cable, is a serious cause for concern," says Bashir. Egypt suffered an Internet outage on 30 January this year when the same cables were severed. Abdel-Rahman Shahin, official spokesman at the Ministry of Health and Population, told Al-Ahram Weekly that medical services had not been seriously affected. "The disruption did not affect traffic in medical reports and test results between the ministry, the central laboratories and hospitals. They are usually sent by fax, and sometimes delivered by hand when fax lines are overloaded. Our greatest problem was the lack of contact with the outside world but we can cope with that for a few days." The shutdown highlighted the fragility of international communications. Despite the vast number of individuals who daily access the web, almost all Internet traffic is directed through a small number of cables submerged deep below the oceans and then dispatched through an Internet fibre vertebrae consisting of just 13 servers which handle and direct all online requests. The outage has led to anger among many travel agents who had to turn away clients and tell them to return when the Internet connection was restored. "Thankfully the problem did not last for a long time. Throughout the outage, like other agencies, we had to issue tickets manually. Those travelling for emergencies were taken to the airport accompanied by a travel agent to help them get manual tickets," said travel agency owner Momtaz Radwan. Last week's partial disruption of Internet services in Egypt showed once again that one man's meat is another man's poison. Traditional fax machines were suddenly back in favour and business centres experienced a mini-boom. "I opened three years ago and the only time I've been so busy on Friday and Saturday or sent so many faxes was earlier this year, again when the Internet was down," says Mohamed Hassan, owner of a business centre at Al-Remayah district. Egypt's Internet cafés saw business crash in the wake of the cut. Ihsan El-Sayed, manager of an Internet café in Mohandessin, told the Weekly, "the café usually makes more than LE1,500 during weekends and LE200-350 on regular week days. Young people come to chat with relatives or friends abroad and students to do research. I lost a lot of money on Friday and Saturday as my regular customers all left when they realised there was no server." While the outage went almost unnoticed by the country's national banks some foreign banks experienced difficulties. "We were not affected by the Internet breakdown," confirms Mohamed Ramadan, head of Egypt National Bank's (ENB) Agouza district branch. ENB, which runs the nationwide MoneyGram transfer service. "ENB branches are connected with MoneyGram through an internal network so services were delivered at their usual pace." London- based banks, however, were warned that although telecommunications were stable they remained restricted and the Internet should not be used for non- critical services. According to a report released by a multinational London- based bank "the service is slower than usual and all bank-employee Internet users have been requested to refrain from using the Internet except in emergencies." Egypt's Stock Market (ESM) continued trading and reported no complaints from brokerages. "ESM has its own internal trading system and trading sessions went smoothly," says ESM employee Heba Eissa.
