Cable Cut Fever and the 'Fifth Cut' update from February 2008

In the fast and furious movement of news around the blogosphere, fact-checking and context sometimes get shortchanged. The telecom cable outages affecting the Middle East provide an example of this phenomena, as a legitimate infrastructure problem has been amplified and overlaid with conspiracy theories and geopolitical punditry. Ryan Singel at Wired's Threat Level blog seeks to sort out the latest headlines and bring some clarity and context to the story.

Ryan notes that the much-publicized fifth cable cut "turns out to be an unexceptional cable failure from weeks ago." Singel touches base with industry sources including TeleGeography's Stefan Beckert. An excerpt:

Nonetheless, network operators are eager to get more information once the repairs are finished, especially about the state of the cables, which may serve to either feed the rumors or put them to rest.