Outage Outrage

In 2008, a discarded six-ton anchor hit two subsea cables off the Egyptian coast and wiped out the internet connection for a large portion of North Africa and the Persian Gulf countries.

Internet outages have a bigger impact in smaller places or developing countries, as most of their information comes through the cables from elsewhere. A cut cable in the US or China would hardly cause any disruption at all, as most of their websites are “homegrown”.