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Egypt Calls for Bandwidth Rationing

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the stay-away-from-youtube dept.

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Egypt's Ministry of Communications and Information Technology has called upon its citizens to ration their internet usage. This comes after two of its three undersea fiber optic links were recently severed. The cut cables have caused communication difficulties for millions of people throughout the Middle East. Ministry spokesman Mohammed Taymur was quoted as saying, 'People should know how to use the Internet because people who download music and films are going to affect businesses who have more important things to do.'"

3 of 182 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Business more important than my porn? NO! by klingens · · Score: 2, Informative

    The (possible) SLAs are exactly the point: chances are, the telecommunications company, and probably the cable too, is directly owned by the government. This is a usual arrangement in most islamic countries so any payout or loss of revenue due SLAs is directly hurting the government of which this minister is an officer.

  2. Re:Ah, good times by MrMickS · · Score: 4, Informative

    Maybe they'll put in some redundant routes after this, which is probably what happened here. Erm ... there are redundant routes. Two of them, 2km apart, have both been severed the result being that they are down to a single route. Given the political nature of the area it wouldn't be a surprise for the redunancy to not be as high as possible with inter-country connects.
    --
    You may think me a tired, old, cynic. I'd have to disagree about the tired bit.
  3. Re:These cables were cut on purpose by Zymergy · · Score: 2, Informative

    IMHO, I respectfully disagree. Any propulsion system other than Nuclear would just not be very feasible for extended undersea cable tapping operations and Seal incursions, etc...
    The USS Jimmy Carter's battery of 50 Tomahawk (nuclear warhead capable) cruise *missiles* are deterrence in my opinion. (But conventional warhead Tomahawks are scary as well.)
    To also modify a nuclear submarine design to be 100 feet longer in order to accommodate more Seal Teams & "gear" is also deterrence. Deterrence is a matter of opinion though.
    Strictly speaking, yes, only boomers (SSBN's) have ICBM capabilities. But to me, the USS Jimmy Carter's *known* capabilities are formidable and would certainly deter me (were I a US adversary) from provoking the United States further (especially if intelligence told me it was hiding somewhere off my coast and I had recently severely pissed-off the US.)

    Additional info in these Wiki articles: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seawolf_class_submarine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Jimmy_Carter