Egypt’s last ISP goes down

The Internet monitoring group Renesys is reporting on its blog that Egypt’s last functioning ISP is no longer accessible from outside Egypt. The Noor Group, which provides Internet service for a number of domestic and international concerns including the American University in Cairo and the Egyptian Stock Exchange, was the only ISP not shut down by the government last week. (Trading on the exchange is currently indefinitely suspended.)

As Jillian York noted last week, there have been previous internet shutdowns during times of political upheaval such as Burma during the 2005 monks protest and China’s Xinjiang province during the ethnic riots of 2009.  But both of those are relatively undeveloped places with highly-restricted Internet usage during the best of times. But Egypt is a major world economy whose top telecoms entrepreneur is one of the world’s richest men. This is truly unprecedented.