This posting is mostly for my friends who may or many not be internet-savvy enough to know how to look past all the fear mongering and hyperbole that’s been put out there by media regarding the recent network cable breaks overseas.

I will try to summarize the information that was presented here, here, here and here – if you want more in-depth, please to go those links. 🙂

In a nutshell: Last week two undersea cables were cut in the Mediterranean north of Egypt. Whether this was an accident or not is still to be determined. The affected cables were SEA-ME-WE-4 and FLAG Europe-Asia.

The countries hardest affected by these cable cuts were Egypt, Pakistan, India and Kuwait.

Iran, contrary to common belief, was not even in the 10 top affected countries, despite having lost approx. 20% of it’s connectivity.

Don’t get me wrong, losing 20% of a countries internet connectivity is bad – real bad – but nothing compared to the 90+ percent for Egypt and Pakistan.

An interesting point of note, is that many of the countries have managed to recover some of their lost connectivity – but they’re far from being out of the woods. And even if in the next week or so more of the connectivity is re-established, it won’t be until cable repairs are completed that the internet for those affected, will be back at full speed. (Currently, some of Europe is getting across the Mediterranean via the US and Asia….)