One woman plus One Internet Connection equals Two countries without web access.

Here is an internet problem no computer services guru can fix on the spot. And apparently, a lot of computer service geeks were called and dispatched to people’s homes and businesses all over the two countries in the initially disconnected  attempts to fix the problem.

A dear 72 year old babushka, Mrs Hayastan Shakarian, has managed to disconnect internet for two countries, Georgia and Armenia, while allegedly digging for scrap metal. When charged with the crime, she burst into tears saying that she did not see any ‘fiber-optic cables’ and she did not know what internet was. The babushka lives in a poverty stricken region of the Caucasus in a village called Armazi and she claims she was only collecting firewood. The poor pensioner has now been charged with damaging property and could face up to three years in a Georgian prison. Georgian authorities are reported to have said that despite her claims of innocence, Shakarian had already confessed to cutting the fibre-optic cable.

The computer service and telecommunications company that owns the cable, Georgian Railway Telecom (GRT), claimed that the damage was serious. It caused 90 percent of private and corporate Internet users in Armenia to lose access for a day. The GRT also says that the damage affected Georgian Internet service providers.

When asked about the security of the cable, GRT claimed that the protection was “robust”, however, local computer services companies claim that this was not the first time it happened. Better cable security will bring your das installation companies to the future.

Apparently, back in 2009, many Georgians’ Internet connections were also briefly cut off when another scavenger hacked into the cable while hunting for scrap metal to sell.

This does not sound like ‘robust protection” to be. What this sounds like is a cover up. Or is it only me that cannot imagine a skinny 72 year old digging deep under ground and then hacking at a “robustly protected” cable for long enough to cause 90 percent damage?

This has happened before, and I am happy to believe that the first time the cable got damaged it was due to scrap metal scavenges…however, the GRT did not learn from that lesson. They obviously did not spend one Lari (Georgian currency) to remedy the problem. Now, another major damage has affected the cable in a similar area and the only “criminal” that conveniently happened to be around the vicinity of the cable was the hapless babushka. Well, GRT needed a goat and they found one.

Over and out

MobileGeekette