Tens of millions of internet users across the Middle East and Asia
have been left without access to the web after a technical fault cut
millions of connections. The outage, which is being blamed on a
fault in a single undersea cable, has severely restricted internet
access in countries including India, Egypt and Saudi Arabia and left
huge numbers of people struggling to get online.

Observers say that the digital blackout first struck yesterday
morning, with the Egypt’s communications ministry suggesting it was
caused by a cut in a major internet pipeline linking it to Europe.

The
line in question runs under the Mediterranean, from Palermo in Italy to
Alexandria in Egypt. It is not clear what caused the break. The cable
is one of only a handful of connections, and part of the world’s
longest undersea cable, 24,500 miles long, running from Germany,
through the Middle East and India before terminating in Australia and
Japan.

Reports suggested that the lack of alternative routes
for internet traffic meant only a small proportion of surfers were
managing to get online. Egyptian officials said that around 70% of the
country’s online traffic was being blocked, while officials in Mumbai
said that more than half of India’s internet capacity had been erased,
which could have potentially disastrous consequences for the country’s
burgeoning hi-tech industry.

"There has been a 50% to 60% cut
in bandwidth," Rajesh Charia, president of the Internet Service
Providers’ Association of India told Reuters.

The shutdown
highlighted the often frail nature of international communications:
despite the vast number of individuals who have access to the web,
nearly all internet traffic is routed through a small number of cables
submerged deep below the oceans. It is then forwarded through an
internet backbone consisting of just 13 servers which handle and direct
all online requests.

Amr Gharbeia, a blogger from Cairo, said
the inability to communicate with the outside world had caused
confusion and concern among Egyptians. "When I woke up this morning
there was no internet at home, and then I visited two or three other
places during the day and they had no access either," he told the
Guardian.

He said the lack of information about the outage
meant that many people had been left wondering if the Egyptian
authorities - who have previously jailed online critics and threatened
to close down websites they deem a threat - had blocked web access in
an act of censorship.

"We started getting paranoid because we’ve
seen the internet temporarily shut down before in countries like
Pakistan," he said. "But I think we only have two internet gateways
that go outside of Egypt, so perhaps only the smaller one is currently
working."

The outage will take several days to fix, and could
have a drastic impact around the region and across the globe. As well
as hitting communications, businesses and the hi-tech industry in
affected countries, it could also have repercussions for banks and even
stock market trading.

Via The Guardian