Internet snaps between two continents

Between the hot air of the primary election season and the tricks Mother Nature has been playing on us, maybe you missed the small news story this week. There would have been a lot of NOISE, LAWSUITS and WHY IS THIS HAPPENING TO ME! if it occurred here in America.

Undersea cables snapped in the Mediterranean Sea between North Africa and Asia, part of a chain of cables carrying internet traffic through much of Europe and the Middle East.



If it takes a week to repair an above-ground water main break in Chicago, imagine trying to find and fix a link under the ocean, where 99 percent of internet traffic is connected. India? They lost 50 percent of their internet capacity. Egypt? They are limping along at 60 percent. Those are the areas widely affected, both for casual internet usage as well as financial markets and communication channels. In fact many U.S. east coast companies and many multi-national firms such as IBM and Intel feel the effects of the outage.

Yes, it could also happen here. And I think we would be hearing a whole lot more complaining if it did. No matter how sophisticated the internet gets, or how wireless we think our world is becoming, there is still a telephone-like system of cables carrying a signal and connecting computers.

With all the weather and politics in the news, I didn't want you to miss the reality that it could also happen here, and we have to know that we can go back to older systems in a crisis, obtain data we need, and have the resources to get by during difficult times.

* Photo taken from BBC News