Egypt restores internet services (VIDEO)

BGPMon, a networking firm which monitors internet traffic routing, said it "noticed the first signs of life from the previously unreachable Egyptian networks" at about 4:45 a.m. ET. Most ISPs are have reannounced Border Gateway Protocol routes, which tell other networks how to send and receive their traffic, BGPMon said.

Egyptian Internet statistics from RIPE, the European organization that oversees Internet address allocation, showed the restoration of Egypt's internet operations.

A number of Egyptian Web sites, including the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, the Central Bank of Egypt, and the Egyptian Sock Exchange are available. And Twitter activity relating to Egypt is surging.

Internet access was restored the day after Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said on state television that he would not stand in planned September elections.

Egypt blocked Facebook and Twitter last week, after the social networks were used to rally demonstrators for unprecedented protests in Cairo, and then cut off the country's internet service completely in an attempt to disrupt plans for massive new protests.

Twitter co-founder Biz Stone and General Council Alexander Macgillivray co-wrote a blog post titled “The Tweets Must Flow,” being viewed as a direct reference to the clampdown on internet use in Egypt.