A discussion about the Telecommunication Industry

The Pakistan government has decided that video sharing site YouTube is not acceptable for its population.  For most of us that’s not that big a deal, except that because of an error in Hong Kong, more then half the world could not access YouTube.

At the Pakistani government’s order, Pakistan Telecom routed requests for YouTube into Internet oblivion.  Somehow, that routing data was sent to PCCW of Hong Kong.  Inadvertently, PCCW changed their routing data to match Pakistan Telecom's.  PCCW is one of the 20 largest Internet data companies in the world.   Other Internet carriers picked up on routing change from PCCW and puff, half of the world trying to get to YouTube ended up in an Internet black hole in some Pakistani server.

While this issue only lasted a few hours, it comes on the heals of major Internet outages caused by damage to several undersea fiber optic cables and goes further to underscore how vulnerable the Internet can be various problems.