Nov 21, 2000 - 09:23 AM

Break in Undersea Cable Disrupts Internet Traffic in Several Countries The Associated Press

SINGAPORE (AP) - A break in one of the world's busiest and longest undersea cables disrupted Internet traffic in Singapore, Indonesia and Australia on Tuesday. There was a "break in the cable" on Monday off the coast of Singapore, which caused a traffic jam on the Internet for users of Telstra's online services, said Stewart Gray, a spokesman for Australia's largest telecom company.

Users of Telstra's Internet services couldn't get onto the Net, Gray said.

Telstra relies on the cable, which connects Australia, Asia, the Middle East and Europe, for about 50 percent of its Internet traffic, he said.

By Tuesday, Telstra had managed to redirect most of its Internet traffic to another undersea cable, the Asia Pacific Cable Network, known as APCN, and its Internet services were back to around 75 percent of capacity, Gray said.

Gray said it would probably take about a week for the cable to be fixed and for Internet traffic to return to normal.

Singapore Telecommunications said it also had to reroute its Internet traffic on Monday to the APCN cable. But SingTel services were running smoothly on Tuesday, spokesman Ivan Tan said.

The break occurred 40 miles off the coast of Singapore, 80 feet underwater.

The cause was unclear, but Gray said it could have been caused by a ship, since it occurred in "relatively shallow water."

http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGA151NOTFC.html

-- Carl Jenkins (somewherepress@aol.com), November 21, 2000