As wrapped up as I’ve been in internet technology for years, and the Egyptian citizen revolt for days, the impact of the state closure of the internet hadn’t quite struck me.  We all tend to watch through our own personal lens.  In this case I merely saw the closure as affecting the people, the mobilizers.  Of course, there is a far wider impact.

Egypt banks, for example, essentially disappeared from the world map.  Commerce — think cotton– ground to a halt.  Amazing. I’ll bet the government didn’t think this through, either.  This may be a case of setting up a circular firing squad: trying to stop the protests, the entire country is shut down — leading to more protests.

The Egyptian government‘s unprecedented shutdown of Internet and mobile phone access Friday stunned the world’s technology community, which questioned whether the country can quickly recover from cutting such a vital link for commerce and communication.

“It is astonishing because Egypt has so much potentially to lose in terms of credibility with the Internet community and the economic world,” Cowie said. “It will set Egypt back for years in terms of its hopes of becoming a regional Internet power.”

He said the long-term economic effects are unclear because “we’ve never seen a country rebooted on this scale before.”

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