Egypt restores links to Internet

IDG News Service - The Internet has returned to Egypt.

Five days after the country took the unprecedented step of disconnecting itself from the global network, Internet users in the country began reporting connections had returned. As they were sending out the news, Egyptian websites that had been unreachable for days were again visible from outside the country.

The home pages of Vodafone Egypt and Etisalat, two of the country's largest telecommunications carriers, were first to appear at around 0930 UTC, according to IDG News Service monitoring. Shortly after the websites of Orascom Telecom and the Egyptian Stock Exchange reappeared.

The website of the Egyptian Parliament is also now accessible outside Egypt, but does not appear to have been updated since Jan. 24.

Egypt was largely cut off from the Internet on Friday, Jan. 28, as protests against the rule of Hosni Mubarak began to gather steam. The demonstrations, Egypt's worst social unrest in 30 years, continue and thousands remain Cairo's Tahrir Square demanding Mubarak's resignation.

Martyn Williams covers Japan and general technology breaking news for The IDG News Service. Follow Martyn on Twitter at @martyn_williams. Martyn's e-mail address is martyn_williams@idg.com