"We're Sorry…The Entire Country is Offline"

Service was interrupted for approximately one million Internet users in Costa Rica after two massive underwater fiber optic cables were damaged last week.

Costa Rica wasn't alone-according to reports, 19 countries in the Latin America-Caribbean region were also affected. The problems were traced to two cables in the Americas Region Caribbean Optical-ring System (ARCOS), that connects the U.S. to Mexico, the Caribbean, Central America, and South America.

The first malfunction, on the cable known as ARCOS-1, was reported early this month at a station in Punto Fijo, Venezuela, but did not affect connectivity. A second failure on the same cable was reported last week in Bluefields, Nicaragua. Some Internet traffic was transferred to the second cable, MAYA-1, however, a failure on that cable was reported last week in Maria Chiquita, Panama.

Users across the region have struggled with slow connections and an inability to access certain pages, while Costa Rica was disconnected entirely from the Internet for an hour last week.

Paul Scott, President of Columbus Networks, said the damage was caused by fishing boats (Columbus Networks owns 94% of ARCOS). Repairs are already underway.

Your Latin America Insider,

Suzan Haskins
for International Living

P.S. Random Internet connectivity issues aside, doing business and staying in touch is easy in Costa Rica. Find out all you need to know about living here this November at IL's Live & Prosper in Costa Rica Seminar. Experts and expats based in Costa Rica will give you the latest information and answer all your questions. Be the first to receive details as soon as they are released-just send an e-mail to our Events team at Events@InternationalLiving.com.