Algeria's Internet Shut Down as Unrest Grows?

There is some question as to if Algeria has pulled the plug on their internet. If they did they are being a lot more subtle about it then Egypt was. The reports persist so it is likely something is going on, though it may not be intentional.

http://mashable.com/2011/02/12/algeria-facebook-shutdown-2

"Protests in Algeria intensified today, and the Algerian government responded by deleting Facebook accounts and shutting down Internet service providers across the country, according to The Telegraph.

In a volatile situation similar to that which brought down former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, the Algerian government has dispatched 30,000 riot police in Algiers, and is resorting to tear gas and plastic bullets to try to discourage dissent, according to The Telegraph."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/12/algeria-internet-not-shut_n_822473.html

"Internet intelligence authority Renesys, which confirmed the Egypt outage weeks ago, says in a new blog post that it has no evidence that Algeria's Internet has been shut down.

Renesys writes:

Algeria typically has about 135 routed network prefixes in the global routing table, and our data show that they are all still routed and relatively stable. Traceroutes inbound confirm that sites hosted in these prefixes are still alive, and spot checks of websites hosted in Algeria show that most are up and functioning normally.

It's possible, according to Renesys, that there are some Internet blocks not visible to outside the country, similar to Iranian-style throttling, but that can not be confirmed at this time."