I dont know if they are repaired yet but some of the major cables passing internet traffic from asia to europe are out some countries have lost a lot of their internet.
Remeber many of the lines are voip.
Demand is the other facotor of course. Everyone rings texts etc at the same time. Happens in bulit up areas in the UK where for a few mintues either side of NYE and Xmas eve etc the lines are hard to get and sms take a while to go though.
The ohter i belive is that discount telephone comapnies buy up spare capacity so on certain days im sure they find it harder to come across im sure the major networks on special days hold back some capacity to ensure their own systems work as well as they can.
