YankeeJim:
A local morning radio show, The Wease Show on 95.1 WFX, has direct phone contact with a Rochester native currently living right in the middle of what is happening over there. Very enlightening as the dj calls her every morning (yes, the phones work) for an update and you get a first hand report.
Most interesting is what she (the Egypt person) says--don't believe the media, it's not like what you see. Yes, the country's in turmoil but the friggin sensationalize everything media is not doing a good job reporting it accurately. Go figure, sell more newspapers.
Cell phones were shut down in Egypt for a week, ending not long ago. It must've been a satellite phone... the difference being that, unlike a cell phone, you can't shut a satellite phone down by bringing down cell towers.
At any rate, I'd call it a big deal:
1) There have been hundreds of thousands, perhaps up to a million people protesting.
2) Thousands of Molotov cocktails have been thrown and shots have been fired.
3) The military was called in.
4) The internet was shut down for a week. (Mubarak's an idiot.)
5) Cell phones were shut down for a week. (Mubarak's an idiot.)
6) The President made concessions. (I don't know much about Egypt's politics, but it seems to me that the primary concern of the protesters is police corruption and brutality. Mubarak should've just lopped off some heads at various police departments and ordered all police to quit torturing/killing people.)
7) The US felt its ally was under such duress that they pretty much publicly abandoned him in order to buddy-up to whoever takes over. (That's the public display, at any rate. It could be another Nga Dinh Diem -type scenario.)
The only reason this could have been over-hyped by the US media is if the USG told them to over-hype it in order to feed the fire... perhaps the USG secretly wants Mubarak gone.