Iraq Emerges From Isolation As Telecommunications Hub 59
New submitter jamaicaplain sends this quote from an article in the NY Times:
"Iraq, cut off from decades of technological progress because of dictatorship, sanctions and wars, recently took a big step out of isolation and into the digital world when its telecommunications system was linked to a vast new undersea cable system serving the Gulf countries. The engineers who designed and installed the cable that made shore in Al-Faw, near Basra, had to deal with an unusual number of challenges. There were more than 100 oil and natural gas pipelines to cross; stretches of shallow water where the cable had to be buried; and unexploded ordnance from the Iraq war that had to be avoided. ... Because of the crisis in Syria and the tensions over Iran, the possibility of routing traffic via Iraq has suddenly become more attractive to telecommunications operators. ... 'Iraq has a very strong strategic position to become a transit point for traffic between Europe and Asia.'"
Re: (Score:1)
Depends on where you plan on living.
They key to a survival compound is your ability to reach it as such having it on adjacent property does sound like a good course of action.
Black licorice, lots and lots of black licorice, you can never have enough.
A pea shooter and a very heavy door.
Solar, and any excess electricity should be stored as hydrogen.
Re: (Score:1)
A - It depends on where you want to buy, I suggest the UK or Switzerland, since they are both politically stable. Lots of Russian and 3rd World Oligarchs are buying there. The rest of Europe (except for the tax havens of Andorra, Monaco, and San Marino) don't look so good for price appreciation.
Q - Do you think purchasing adjacent property as a survival compound is wise?
A - Why, are you really expecting the Zombie Apocalypse?
Q - What types of items wou
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
The question is which pipes are not being monitored.
Kinda funny that them screwing over the person who designed the tap made this public knowledge.
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/05/09/23/2022243/eminent-domain-applied-to-ip-due-to-state-secrets [slashdot.org]
Re: (Score:2)
And whats the betting the pipe conveniently has a US Intel feed monitoring all the data. A way to spy on Europe, without having to get permission to tap into the European pipes directly
Brilliant! Because sitting on Iraq end of an internet pipe going into Europe is SO much better than sitting on the American end of an internet pipe going into Europe because... well.... maybe not.
This was expected... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:1)
But how can this stuff be protected? There are car-bombings almost daily in the news from Iraq.
All those foreign ideas arriving in Iraq are sure to piss off people who will truck bomb you merely for dressing different.
Another Homeland Security monitoring site! (Score:2, Insightful)
Use Satellites (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Sounds awesome for heavy downloading. But for anything nearing real-time, that speed-of-light thing is a real bitch.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Use Satellites (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Obviously written by someone never stuck "sucking on a satellite" for Internet access.
Satellite Internet seemed to work fine for web browsing last I used it. However, I wasn't paying the dollar per megabyte or whatever they charge these days, or trying to play online games.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
They each go the same distance at about the same speed. Spot beams have been the laser of RF for a long time. They can relieve the congestion but not the latency and that's the killer issue. The fix for sats was leo clouds rather than goe sync to get the distance down. It was tried and pretty much failed, leo needs a lot of sats that need to be replaced often vs geo's one bird will do 1/3 the planet fairly easily and lasts 10-15 years.
I bet they go back to isolation (Score:2, Funny)
I bet they cut the cable a month after getting their first DSL bill.
Re:I bet they go back to isolation (Score:4, Interesting)
Or as soon as they "elect" someone who thinks the Internet is a slight against Allah.
God, westerners are so iggernant. (Score:1)
The prophet Mohammed cut the sleeve off his robe to avoid disturbing a sleeping cat.
Why do you think the USA tortures Muslims with dogs, eh? Using a dog on an observant Muslim is like force-feeding an Orthodox Jew pig's blood. Totally not kidding. We do this to break them psychologically.
Anyone with the slightest knowledge of world affairs knows this.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Who thinks it is a slight? Or who says that he thinks it is a slight? The former is stupid AND ignorant; the latter is just a smart political move if your goal is to head an oligarchy through suppression. Not that suppression is going to work in the long run...
Re:I bet they go back to isolation (Score:4, Insightful)
Or as soon as they "elect" someone who thinks the Internet is a slight against Allah.
Even then they wouldn't cut the lines. They would just not allow local access to the lines. Islamist states aren't stupid; the rents they would get from these lines would be significant, but more than that it gives them strategic influence as well.
You Iraqi Ingrates (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Modded troll? That was hilarious!
Neo-con mod squad again, I guess.
Re: (Score:2)
Modded troll? That was hilarious!
Neo-con mod squad again, I guess.
Being modded Troll cut deep. Yeah, could be a neo-con who disagrees (although I don't see how) or some PC doof with poor reading comprehension who thinks I'm being 'mean' to Iraqis. Afterall, haven't they suffered enough by all they brought on themselves!!!???? :-D
Navel Mines? (Score:2)
"and unexploded ordnance from the Iraq war that had to be avoided"
Since this is an undersea cable I can only assume they are referring to Navel Mines... They are still bobbing about? Crazy.
Re:Navel Mines? (Score:4, Funny)
Are those where they get oranges from?
Re: (Score:2)
LOL! Yes better than the other kind, explosions of lint everywhere...
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
"and unexploded ordnance from the Iraq war that had to be avoided"
Since this is an undersea cable I can only assume they are referring to Navel Mines... They are still bobbing about? Crazy.
It's not all undersea cable; as the summary notes, it runs ashore near Basra and, I assume, would then continue overland. So they would probably have tried to avoid major roads and other areas that would have been likely IED sites. The larger IEDs can create rather large craters (maybe the shockwave could damage nearby underground cable as well?), and most of any remaining IEDs would be pressure or trip-wire activated and could remain unexploded for a while.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
All Iraqi's i've met can haggle very well. I doubt anyone is taking advantage of them or getting any kind of discount.
I give it 12 months... (Score:2)