Riaan wrote
WTF...I thought the internet was, at the height of the cold war, invented so that communications could be maintained if one or more US cities got blasted by the Russians. Now it appears that the entire country is without international access, probably because a hungry shark bit through the Seacom cable.
The origins of the Internet are a bit over glamourised, but there was a point, and within the USA, where it had that kind of redundancy - but that was because of multiple pathways between then various "hub" sites.
In SA we don't have those multiple pathways, especially when it comes to overseas connectivity. Trouble with seacom (which we have) and overseas access becomes problematic for a large number of people.
The networking protocols involved are capable of re-routing on the fly IF there are multiple routes.
For a good read on the birth of the Internent get
Where Wizards Stay Up Late by Katie Hafner and Matthew Lyon.
