Internet services in Egypt, India disrupted
Friday, February 1, 2008 19:36MUMBAI: A breakdown in an international undersea cable network badly disrupted Internet links to India and Egypt on Wednesday.
Egypt’s Telecommunications Ministry said a communications cable in the Mediterranean was cut, disrupting 70 per cent of the country’s Internet network. The ministry said in a statement it was not known how the cable was cut but that services would probably take several days to return to normal.
India reported serious disruptions to its services and one Indian Internet service provider linked the problem to the Egyptian outage. “There has been a cable cut on several cable systems in Alexandria, Egypt, which has impacted Internet connectivity in India,” Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd (VSNL), an Internet service provider, said in a statement. VSNL said its service had been “largely restored” by diverting to another cable. India said it had lost more than half of its capacity.
“There has been a 50 to 60 per cent cut in bandwidth,” Rajesh Chharia, president of the Internet Service Providers’ Association of India, told Reuters. He told the Headlines Today news channel that a “degraded” service would be activated by Wednesday night, but full restoration will take 10 to 15 days. Chharia said companies, including some of India’s many outsourcing businesses, had been affected.
Pakistan also affected: The SEA ME WE- 4 Submarine Cable encountered a cut 25 kilometres from Alexandria Cable Station of SMW4 (segment 4/Alexandria-Marseilles), APP adds from Lahore.
The cable cut disrupted all west-bound (towards Europe) traffic on SMW4 of all major upstream service providers like TIS, Verizon, etc. Internet Service Providers Association Vice President and Brain Telecommunication Limited (BTL) Director Dr Shahid Farooq Alvi told APP here on Wednesday that as a result all major operators of the region, including Pakistan/BTL, are experiencing congestion on west-bound routes.
He said the BTL had already shifted traffic load to its alternative paths to reduce degradation in services of the customers and was also working closely with the partners to increase alternative capacity.
“Moreover, our upstream connectivity with FLAG is also disrupted and we are currently working with FLAG NOC to get the exact ETR,” he added. Regretting the inconvenience, he said the BTL is taking every possible action to ensure that its customers face minimal service quality issues from the disruption.
