Three major underwater telecom cable cuts on Friday have left almost 80 percent of web access out of service between Europe, the Middle East and Asia. Internet and telephone service has been badly affected in many countries with either fluctuation or complete disruption of internet connection.
On Friday, a France Telecom announced in a statement that three undersea cables: Sea Me We3, Sea Me We4 and FLAG carrying internet traffic were damaged while the causes of cut were not clear. Two of the cables are owned by a consortium of network companies, while the third one is run by Reliance Globalcom.
All three affected cable systems carry more than 75 percent of traffic between the Middle East, Europe and the United States. Simultaneous cut of all the major cables put the entire service in halt as it was highly unlikely to divert the entire service through any alternative cable.
Traffic from Europe to Algeria and Tunisia is not affected, but traffic from Europe to the Near East and Asia is interrupted to a greater or lesser extent. Here is a list of the impact on the voice traffic as released by the France Telecom:
- Saudi Arabia: 55% out of service - Djibouti: 71% out of service - Egypt: 52% out of service - United Arab Emirates: 68% out of service - India: 82% out of service - Lebanon: 16% out of service - Malaysia: 42% out of service - Maldives: 100% out of service - Pakistan: 51% out of service - Qatar: 73% out of service - Syria: 36% out of service - Taiwan: 39% out of service - Yemen: 38% out of service - Zambia: 62% out of service
According to reports, though the causes of the cut in the Mediterranean between Sicily and Tunisia are unknown, some seismic activities were reported near Malta shortly the cut was detected.
Cable ships have been sent by the respective companies to repair the damages. The French telecom company expressed that service could be restored fully by the end of this year.
Many countries including India, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Taiwan, Pakistan, Malaysia and Singapore were badly hit by this service since early Friday. However, most of the business-to-business traffics between Europe and Asia have been re-routed via United States.
Experts believe any further delay in restoring the service would hit regional economies of many countries with considerable impact on the call centre industry.
This is not the first instance of underwater cable cut; in January 30 this year, five cables in Mediterranean region were damaged causing Internet failures.
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