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Cairo, 03 February 2008 |
Minister of Communications and Information Technology Dr. Tarek Kamel and MCIT’s emergency task force received today a report from Minister of Transport Eng. Mohamed Mansour indicating that no ships crossed the site where the two marine cables were cut off under the Mediterranean Sea, causing a disruption in internet and communications services in Egypt.
According to the report, a marine transport committee investigated the traffic of ships in the area, 12 hours before and after the malfunction, where the cables are located to figure out the possibility of being cut by a passing vessel and found out there were no passing ships at that time.
The committee further added the site is a restricted area, which excludes the possibility that the malfunction resulted from a crossing ship.
Based on the report, National Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (NTRA) Chairman Dr. Amr Badawy will be informing Fiber-Optic Link Around the Globe (FLAG) and South East Asia-Middle East-West Europe 4 (SEA-ME-WE 4), owners of the two marine cables, of the report findings.
Meanwhile, internet efficiency in Egypt has reached about 70% after adding extra capacities by 5 GB/second from France Telecom at the request of Telecom Egypt and Egyptian internet service providers (ISPs), to reach 80% by Monday.
Repair operations will kick off Tuesday and are expected to take several days to re-install the internet to its original tracks. Irregular internet connection will take not less than ten other days, a total of two weeks after the malfunction first broke out last Wednesday at dawn.
Eng. Beshir said a TE engineer will be sent on board of a repair ship to examine the reason for the malfunction.
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