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Ship Anchor Damages African Undersea Cables

Posted by Soulskill on from the have-you-tried-turning-it-off-and-then-on-again dept.

New submitter Bastian227 writes "A ship anchoring in a restricted area disrupted an East African high-speed Internet connection. The damaged fiber optic cable is one of three new undersea cables in the area off Kenyan coast. Repairs could take up to 14 days. 'The Teams cable had been rerouting data from three other cables severed 10 days ago in the Red Sea between Djibouti and the Middle East. Together, the four fiber-optic cables channel thousands of gigabytes of information per second and form the backbone of East Africa's telecom infrastructure. Telecom companies were reeling over the weekend as engineers attempted to reroute data south along the East African coast and around the Cape of Good Hope.'"

11 of 104 comments (clear)

  1. yay by amoeba1911 · · Score: 5, Funny

    no more Nigerian scams!

    1. Re:yay by houstonbofh · · Score: 5, Funny

      But, backhoe operators around the world are sending sympathy cards to the captain.

    2. Re:yay by arbiter1 · · Score: 3, Informative

      unfortunately its wrong cable that was snapped according to the map. http://www.cablemap.info/

  2. Three others in the area severed 10 days ago? by exploder · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Another bunch of accidental cable disruptions clustered in space and time? Am I paranoid to wonder if something's going on here? Or is it like how earthquakes get more press when they come in bunches?

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    1. Re:Three others in the area severed 10 days ago? by Fluffeh · · Score: 5, Informative

      where's that quote about never ascribing something to conspiracy where idiocy will suffice

      It is Hanlon's Razor, though it says to never attribute to malice that what can easily be explained by stupidity.

      I would say that an undersea cable being cut isn't newsworth on its own, but cut a bunch in the same place in roughly the same time and it becomes news. The cables are cut all the time (I do wonder if the ship that cuts the cable has to pay the bill for repairs?) but a lot of the time it is possible to simply re-route and there isn't too much hassle.

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  3. Oh noez by fph+il+quozientatore · · Score: 4, Funny

    So the internet is now leaking cats into the red sea?

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    Hell Segmentation fault

  4. Re:Thousands of gigabytes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    No sir. They are called terabytes.

  5. Re:Duh by idontgno · · Score: 3, Insightful

    To summarize the summary of the summary: people are a problem.

    -- Douglas Adams

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    Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
  6. Re:Thousands of gigabytes by mooingyak · · Score: 3, Informative

    Together, the four fiber-optic cables channel thousands of gigabytes of information per second

    They're called petabytes.

    Petabytes would be millions of gigabytes. For this one we go with terabytes.

    --
    William of Ockham had no beard. The most likely explanation is that it was chewed off by squirrels every morning.
  7. Restricted Area? What about liability? by NoKaOi · · Score: 4, Interesting

    What exactly does "restricted area" mean in this case? If this means ships are prohibited from dropping anchor there and the ship did anyway, what is the consequence to the captain and ship owner? Loss of license for the captain for violating restricted area? Jail time for vandalism? Ship's owner on the hook for the cost of repair? Seems like if this sort of thing is becoming common than some severe punishment might encourage others to be more careful in the future...especially if it means loss of career and/or freedom for the captain and significant loss of money to the owner.

  8. They have really good aim... by EmagGeek · · Score: 3, Interesting

    You know that game where you drop a quarter into a fish tank and try to get it to fall into a shot glass to win a prize?

    Somehow they keep dropping anchors through 5000 feet of water to hit a cable a few inches in diameter laying on the ocean floor.