Cap'n Bubba the marine backhoe driver - SEA-ME-WE 3 and 4, FLAG cut

Martin Hannigan martin at theicelandguy.com
Sun Dec 28 03:23:09 UTC 2008


The repair is done out of the water. They cut the damage out and bring
and end onto the ship and, using a common joint that all the vendors
use so that any available lay/repair ship in the maintenance
consortium can be dispatched for repair,  they fusion splice the new
section and coat in LDPE and re lay. They do the same with the other
end. IIRC, They have to cut the damage out at different ends in most
cases because the cable would be difficult to lift due to weight. Rod
Beck could probably add some detail here.

I recall the last release said it was a seismic event that caused the
initial multi cable break. I haven't looked at the charts, but I'd
think they were probably close, like a lot of East Coast to London
cable runs are. (Exception: Hibernia Atlantic).

Best,

-M<




On 12/27/08, virendra rode <virendra.rode at gmail.com> wrote:
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> Martin Hannigan wrote:
>> On Fri, Dec 19, 2008 at 12:17 PM, Suresh Ramasubramanian
>> <ops.lists at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> On Dave Farber's IP list.
>>>
>>>> From: France Telecom / Press <infos.group at orange-ftgroup.com>
>>>> To: France Telecom / Press <infos.group at orange-ftgroup.com>
>>>> Subject: Three undersea cables cut: traffic greatly disturbed between
>>>> Europe and Asia/Near East zone
>>>> Date: Fri, 19 Dec 2008 17:09:03 +0100 (CET)
>>>> X-Concentric-MX-Info: s=0AKNHR84D300:1 ts=0 td=53 dt=0 tro=1 tra=2
>>>> trb=1 sro=1 sra=2 ic=0
>>>> X-Concentric-DKIM: SigStatus="No signature", PolSusp="No",
>>>> PolTest="No", Policy="none", Handling="none"
>>>> X-Virus-Status: No
>>>>
>>>> If you can't read this email, please go to :
>>>> http://www.orange.com/en_EN/press/press_releases/cp081219en.html
>>>> Paris, December 19, 2008
>>>> Three undersea cables cut: traffic greatly disturbed between Europe and
>>>> Asia/Near East zone
>>>>
>>>> 3 cables cut this morning (Sea Me We3 partly + Sea Me We4 + FLAG)
>>>> France Telecom Marine cable ship about to depart
>>>>
>>>> France Telecom observed today that 3 major underwater cables were cut:
>>>> ?Sea Me We 4? at 7:28am, ?Sea Me We3? at 7:33am and FLAG at 8:06am.
>>>> The causes of the cut, which is located in the Mediterranean between
>>>> Sicily and Tunisia, on sections linking Sicily to Egypt, remain
>>>> unclear.
>>>>
>>>> Most of the B to B traffic between Europe and Asia is rerouted through
>>>> the USA.
>>>> Traffic from Europe to Algeria and Tunisia is not affected, but traffic
>>>> from Europe to the Near East and Asia is interrupted to a greater or
>>>> lesser extent (see country list below).
>>>> Part of the internet traffic towards R?union is affected as well as 50%
>>>> towards Jordan.
>>>> A first appraisal at 7:44 am UTC gave an estimate of the following
>>>> impact on the voice traffic (in percentage of out of service capacity):
>>>> -    Saudi Arabia: 55% out of service
>>>> -    Djibouti: 71% out of service
>>>> -    Egypt: 52% out of service
>>>> -    United Arab Emirates: 68% out of service
>>>> -    India: 82% out of service
>>>> -    Lebanon: 16% out of service
>>>> -    Malaysia: 42% out of service
>>>> -    Maldives: 100% out of service
>>>> -    Pakistan: 51% out of service
>>>> -    Qatar: 73% out of service
>>>> -    Syria: 36% out of service
>>>> -    Taiwan: 39% out of service
>>>> -    Yemen: 38% out of service
>>>> -    Zambia: 62% out of service
>>>>
>>
>>
>> And it looks like they are going back to square one on SMW4.
>>
>> AMMAN - Internet users in the Kingdom and elsewhere in the region are
>> expected to continue experiencing slower services as repair teams
>> continue their attempts to fix cut cables in the Mediterranean.
>>
>> Raslan Diranieh, chief financial officer of the Jordan Telecom Group
>> (JTG), said that a few hours after SMW-4 Internet cable which links
>> the Kingdom to the International Internet Network was fixed, it
>> experienced another cut on Saturday.
> - ----------------------------
> I wonder how many km apart smw4 & smw3 are of eachother as my
> understanding is they follow same path.
>
> My understanding is repairing is extremely tedious process by which
> robot has to scour the seabed and dig out the broken cable and solder
> individual fiber and check for connectivity not that this is an excuse
> for another cut.
>
>
> regards,
> /virendra
>
>
>>
>>
>> http://www.jordantimes.com/?news=13079
>>
>>
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-- 
Martin Hannigan                               martin at theicelandguy.com
p: +16178216079




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