Zimbabwe's Internet cut off due to lack of foreign currency

By Cory Doctorow at 9:42 am Wednesday, Sep 20

Zimbabwe has run out of foreign currency and can't pay the satellite companies that provide the country's Internet service; the satellite companies have shut off throttled the whole country's Internet access until the bills are paid:

Government-owned TelOne, which owns the country's main satellite Internet link, said satellite firm Intelsat had cut its international bandwidth because it failed to pay the $700,000 fee.

"The link is slow because they reduced the megabits on our satellite link until the payment is made," TelOne spokesman Phill Chingwaru told Reuters on Wednesday.

"We have approached the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe for foreign currency and they are working on that, but meanwhile there would be delays in browsing because of the partial cut-off."

Link (Thanks, Daniel!)