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Another Internet cable damaged near Dubai; India is unaffected

Sujay Mehdudia

NEW DELHI: After the snapping of two undersea cables off the Egyptian coast, another Internet cable, Falcon, owned by FLAG Telecom, has been damaged in the Middle East but Internet operations across India have remained unaffected.

Reliance Communications-owned FLAG Telecom reported the cut in the Falcon cable, 56 km away from Dubai in the segment between UAE and Oman, on Friday. However industry sources say the damage will not affect Internet services across India as the Falcon cable does not carry India-specific traffic. The company said it was arranging for restoration of circuits to customers covered under a pre-planned restoration service.

Fifty-Sixty per cent of the capacity was affected following the rupture on Wednesday night in the undersea cables, SEA-ME-WE 4 Cable (SMW-4) and FLAG Cable, which connect India to Western Europe, consequent to anchoring of ships near Alexandria. However, all Internet links in the country were restored on Friday after service providers shifted their traffic to an alternative route. It would take 10-12 days to repair the damaged cables and shift the traffic back to them.

In touch

The VSNL, Reliance and Bharti Airtel were in constant touch with Telecom Egypt to ensure speedy repairs, the Department of Telecom said after reviewing the situation.

FICCI survey

According to the Federation of Indian Chamber Commerce and Industry (FICCI), operations of several firms in the country for offshore outsourcing are running as usual. A quick survey by the FICCI among members of the Indian IT and ITeS industry showed that a majority of the service providers felt no impact of the sudden disruption in the international undersea cables close to Egypt’s Alexandria coast.

Many of the companies, contacted by the FICCI, said there was no substantial loss as they were using a robust technology and put in place a redundancy plan that allowed them to pick up extra bandwidth from multiple service providers. While multiple routes of connection and tie-ups with multiple service providers saved the day for several companies, a few cases of severe work restriction were also reported.

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