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Last Thursday, I posted a brief article about Internet problems in India, Africa and the Middle East. Two undersea cables had been cut in the Mediterranean Sea, near Egypt.

In the following days, two more undersea cables were damaged. The International Herald Tribune printed an article about the third cable cut, and Wired followed suit with its own article, including a helpful map.

This Tuesday, as Reuters was reporting that a repair ship had reached one of the cut cables, reports surfaced of a fifth cable cut in the same region. BoingBoing has been following the cable cut story, and linked to a report from a Dubai newspaper. CrunchGear also reported on the fifth cut, and added a global map of high-speed fiber-optic connections. Wired claims the fifth cut is actually a cable failure that occurred before the Egypt cuts.

Bruce Schneier has a brief article with several links that I’ve used in this article.

All of these cable failures can be repaired. Here’s a link to pictures of various cable repair ships.

In the meantime, attention is focused on something most Internet users take for granted: the fiber backbone that supports the Internet.

Saul Hansell of the New York Times has an updated overview of the proposed Microsoft purchase of Yahoo. As his article’s title implies, merging the two companies is like building a rocket ship from spare parts. Which business units should be kept? What technologies will be used? What strategies will continue, and what new plans will be implemented?

The biggest risk is that engineering teams from Microsoft and Yahoo will spend years fighting to prove their systems are better and their bosses will listen instead of cutting off debate, picking something and trying to actually take on Google.

See my earlier articles from 4 February and 1 February 2008 for more comments.