Internet slows as cables get cut; BPOs affected

MUMBAI/ BANGALORE: Internet and phone communications between Europe, the Middle East and Asia have been seriously disrupted after submarine cables were severed. The main damage is to the three submarine cables running across the Mediterranean and through the Suez Canal.

It is thought that 65 per cent of traffic to India was down, while services to Singapore, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Taiwan and Pakistan have also been severely affected.
The cause of the break is as yet unknown, although some seismic activity was reported near Malta shortly before the cut was detected.

Back in India’s IT hub, Bangalore, normal functioning at IT and ITES companies was disrupted on Friday and Saturday by the cable break. “The net is crawling, both at home and in office,” says Vinu, Bangalore-based web engineer who subscribes to Airtel’s high-end 8 Mbps plan. While Nasscom president Som Mittal acknowledged there will be some impact on large companies and work levels will go down, many IT companies are using back up support cables to tide over the problem and compensate for the failures. “We have a full fledged back up in place but things need to restored soon,” said Ganesh Natarajan, Global CEO, Zensar Technologies.