Users may
still be suffering internet traffic problems as a result of a
broken transatlantic optical cable that went down earlier this
week.
The London
Internet Exchange (Linx), which carries most of the internet
traffic in the UK, and supports much of Europe’s, said France
Telecom has still not restored a section of cable for which it is
responsible responsible, which broke on Tuesday afternoon (25
November).
As a result, some
ISPs have had to re-route their traffic to overcome the break. The
network sharing arrangements that have made this possible have
resulted in some network management difficulties that could be
affecting end users.
Linx sales and
marketing manager Vanessa Evans told Computer Weekly, “We don’t
know why the cable went down and when France Telecom will be able
to fix it.
“What this has
proved, however, is that the internet is resilient and has the
built in capacity to always find a way to route traffic, but there
is a possibility that some end users may have been affected.”
Evans said voice
traffic is working as normal, and internet traffic over the cable
is at 75% of normal levels.
Users may be
experiencing slow response rates with some websites and e-mail may
be taking longer than usual to arrive. Evans said technical
problems experienced by Telewest, NTL and BT earlier in the week
may have been connected to the fault.
A France Telecom
spokeswoman said the company hoped to have the cable fixed by
Friday evening or Saturday morning