Eleven months after the last such incident three undersea cables have again got cut in the Eastern Mediterranean, off the Egyptian coast.
MUMBAI: Eleven months after the last such incident (cables got cut in the Mediterranean on January 30, 2008) three undersea cables have again got cut in the Eastern Mediterranean, off the Egyptian coast. Two of the three cables that were cut, Flag Middle East-Europe and the South East Asia-Middle East-Western Europe 4 (SEA-ME-WE4), were among the many that got snapped in late January and early February. As is obvious from the names, the two cables, along with the also-affected SEA-ME-WE3, connect South Asia and Middle East to Europe, and account for about 75 per cent of the voice and data traffic through the Red Sea onto the Mediterranean.
Most of the undersea cable operators ‘hedge’ their capacities by entering into emergency re-routing agreements between themselves to tide over emergencies such as the current one. As a result, while most of the Middle East has no or very little access to the Internet, the situation is somewhat better in India. Operators have given voice traffic and dedicated corporate connectivity higher priority in their emergency restoration.
“We did not experience any downtime yesterday or today,” said Ritti Jarg, CEO of Delhi-based voice BPO company In Touch Solutions. Jarg, who buys dedicated 24-hrs connectivity from her provider, says that even in February, when a series of cables broke, connectivity suffered only temporarily. India’s BPO industry depends on reliable connectivity with the US and Europe to carry out outsourced activities such as handling customer queries for US companies. Majority of IT and ITES companies in India have surplus backup routes both through Atlantic and Pacific that pass through the east and west coasts. However if the connection is not restored soon, companies might have to work with snail pace internet connection as the loads on these lines would increase substantially.
While Flag, one of the three cables that have been cut, is entirely owned by the Anil Dhirubhai Ambani group’s (ADAG) Reliance Globalcom, two are owned and operated by two global consortia of telecom companies. While both Bharti Airtel and Tata Communications have stakes in the SEA-ME-WE4, Tata Communications also part-owns and routes a large part of its internet and voice traffic through SEA-ME-WE3, which has also been affected.
Tata Communications did not comment on the extent of impact on their customers or on how long the repairs would take. It however said the breakages have happened due to earthquakes. “Three of the submarine cable systems connecting Asia and Europe have experienced cuts in the Mediterranean due to seismic activity in the region,” it said, adding that it is re-routing traffic along other lines.
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