Egypt Internet connection reverts to dial-up amid chaos

Egypt Internet reduced to dial-up

Internet use in Egypt has been reduced to slow dial-up connections amid the shutdown of major Internet service providers by the government. Egyptians are using whatever means they can including word-of-mouth to organize themselves for a march in the capital Cairo tomorrow.

About 30 dial-up services are currently being used by Internet users to get around the government-imposed blackout, the French Data Network said. The group aims to make data accessible to everyone and wants to help Egyptians get their message across.

"This is definitely an open attack from a state against the Internet," the FDN said in an online statement. "FDN has decided to open a small window on the network."

Internet Society reported earlier that 90 percent of Internet networks in Egypt are down. The simultaneous outage of Internet connections started on January 28 in the wake of large street protests against the rule of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Protestors have been demanding that Mubarak leave his post and put an end to his 30-year authoritarian regime.

As a workaround, the FDN is providing Egyptians access on international connections through dial-up.

"The infrastructure is already in place," FDN chief Benjamin Bayart told Bloomberg. "As long as they have an international phone line, people can dial in."

Unlike Internet services, cellular phone services were again operational on January 29 after being briefly shut down by government officials. Protestors led by opposition figures Mohamed ElBaradei and the Muslim Brotherhood are planning to launch a million-person march tomorrow to demand the resignation of Mubarak.

Posted by James Fried on Tuesday February 01 2011, 4:06 AM EST. Ref: Business Week. All trademarks acknowledged. Filed under Featured News, World. Comments and Trackbacks closed. Follow responses: RSS 2.0