Internet Outage

New cut in the internet cables for the second time in 2008. On Friday the 19th of December 2008, most of the people opened their own computers and started to serve the web but they couldn’t, so they thought that it was a temporary problem or slow down in the service due to routine maintenance. Unfortunately, the whole country was internet less on Friday morning. People were seeking to know the reason for the internet less in Egypt, and the Ministry of Communications declared that three internet cables were cut off. Those cables connect Egypt to Europe, and the cause of the cut was not immediately known. The Ministry guaranteed that the internet will be back by 80 percent on Sunday.

Fortunately, the cut of the internet cables happened during the weekend, where most of the governmental offices, banks, and stock exchange in Egypt are not working during the weekend. On the other hand, travel agents were seriously affected by this cut. The travelling agents had to issue tickets manually. The internet cafes were empty. Also, student faced problem in doing their assignments or search on the web. During the problem the traditional fax machines were suddenly back.

Reference:

Leila, Reem."Internet-less again." Al-Ahram weekly 25-31 Dec. 2008 : 3.