Please go away, the internet is broken

I rang my bank call centre today and, as usual, it was diverted to their Indian call centre.  Unusually, I then got this message: "We apologise for disruption to our service, but we cannot receive your call at the moment.  Please try again later".

I wondered what had happened and, being in Asia, they knew the deal. 

Apparently a ship was unsure whereabouts they were off the coast of Egypt.  As they couldn't work out where they were, they dropped anchor to hang around for a while.  Unfortunately, as they dropped anchor, they didn't realise they were next to two key underwater internet cables owned by Verizon. 

As they lolled about in the Egyptian waters, their anchor dragged under these cables and severed one cable whilst ripping out the other, causing significant damage.

Result? 

South Asia and the Middle East are disconnected from the internet.

Whoops.

Apparently, 70% of Egypt's  internet access was impacted, leaving Cairo with no access for the whole day.  When asked about the impact on the banking system Tarek Amer, Egypt’s ­deputy central bank governor, is reported to have said: “We are disappointed [with] the service and will consider alternatives for the banking system if this happens again.” 

I'm sure you will Tarek, as it's a bit difficult to communicate without the internet these days, isn't it?  SWIFTNet?  Nope.  Internet banking?  Nope. Finextra?  Nope.  Not forgetting all the other things we do online these days :) 

What could be worse?!

Ah well, at least you won't have to put up with my tut every day.

Meanwhile, India's bandwidth was also cut by over half, causing their offshore call centre services a big issue.  It will take a fortnight or so to mend, and I expect that two weeks of unpaid leave will leave India's major workforce steaming a bit for leaving them in the ship.

The lesson is obviously: "to contact your banker, don't be an anchor".