This appears to be the most current status:
Lebanon’s Transportation and Public Works Minister Ghazi al-Aridi said on Saturday that advanced submarines were on-route to Lebanon to aid in search operations of the Ethiopian Airlines flight ET409 crash.
“We did not expect to discover that 10 kilometers from the Lebanese shore, there are depths that go beyond 1300 meters.” Aridi said
During Friday’s cabinet meeting it was revealed that the company that owns Ocean Alert ( which identified the location of the black boxes ) will send Odyssey Explorer, which has the capability a deep diving ROV that will help in recovering the plane’s boxes from the bottom of the sea .
Ocean Alert is currently in the Beirut area, but Odyssey Explorer is in the English Channel doing 8.5 knots. You can follow its path while in areas where its AIS signal is received at this web site:
Live Ships Map - AIS - Vessel Traffic and Positions. As of 31 Jan 2010 Odyssey Explorer is out of AIS contact with web site.
On 30 Jan 2010 the Odyssey Explorer was near Falmouth, UK, approximately 3,200 Nm from Beirut. Based on its speed of about eight knots, it will be mid February before it could arrive at the crash site.