Ship Anchor Caused Dubai Cable Cut

FLAG Telecom says that the Feb. 1 cut in a submarine telecom cable that caused outages in the emirate of Dubai was caused by a ship anchor. "The FALCON Cable cut between Dubai (UAE) and Al SEEB (Oman) is due to a ship anchor; an abandoned anchor (weighing 5-6 tonnes) was found," the company said in an update on its web site. Repairs to the cable are expected to be completed by Sunday, Feb. 10. All circuits have already been rerouted, the company said.

FLAG is still investigating the cause of a cable cut near Alexandria, Egypt that was reported Jan. 30. The process involves tracking along the cable path and checking for cuts using an ROV (Remotely Operated Submarine Vehicles). It also expects that cable to be repaired by Sunday.

The cable outages have fueled many conspiracy theories and received enormous attention in the blogosphere. See our full coverage of the Middle East outages: