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Repair Crews Reach Vicinity of Damaged Cables In Mediterranean

Posted by timothy on from the now-we-need-a-plucky-diver dept.

GWMAW writes "A robotic submarine searched beneath the Mediterranean on Sunday for damaged communications cables, two days after Web and telephone access was knocked out for much of the Middle East. Telecommunication providers from Cairo to Dubai continued Sunday to scramble to reroute voice and data traffic through potentially costly detours in Asia and North America after the lines running under the Mediterranean Sea were damaged Friday." According to the article, "Once found, the cable ends will be pulled to the surface and repaired on deck — a process that could take several days."

4 of 145 comments (clear)

  1. How do they do it? by tsa · · Score: 5, Interesting

    How do they repair the cables? Especially with glass fibre I wouldn't know what to do.

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    1. Re:How do they do it? by au3276f8ads7bfsad76s · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Better yet, how do they find where it's broken? I'm assuming you can't just 'ping' the broken end and get a distance measurement...

    2. Re:How do they do it? by IonOtter · · Score: 3, Interesting

      But nice work if you can do it.

      No it's not.

      I dunno how things work on cable ships for other countries, but working on the USNS Zeus sucks bigtime.

      No internet, no phones, no email, not even any outgoing traffic. NO electronic emissions of any kind. That also includes satellite TV because the dish does emanate some EMF. The only thing you can get is US Navy fleet broadcast coming in on UHF or EHF. You're gone for 3-4 months at a time, nobody onboard except for the captain knows where you're going or when you'll be back.

      The Zeus would drive a Tibetan Hermit insane.

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  2. Re:Satellites FTW? by karmatic · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Yet another reason why we need a better satellite infrastructure. If everyone were using satellites, a reroute through Asia would be unnecessary.

    Except for the whole "240ms minimum latency" thing. Also, it's a lot easier to fix a malfunctioning cable than a malfunctioning satellite. Also, bad weather over the Satellite NOC can take out everyone's connection.