India suffers massive internet disruption after undersea cables break
December 30, 2008 by sovereignjohn
December 19, 2008
Industry experts told The Times that two sub-sea cables went down just off Alexandra, causing the mass disruption. It happens to a single cable typically once a year, and companies have developed the fail-safe of redirecting traffic to a second cable should this occur.
“It is incredibly rare to experience a dual-break where both cables are down simultaneously,” said a spokesperson for Interoute, the internet networks company.
The Egyptian ministry said it will take “several days” for cables to be repaired and is trying to reroute Egypt’s internet connections.
Indian ISPs said their problems were due to the cable damage off Egypt. Speaking to reporters, Rajesh Chharia, president of the Internet Service Providers’ Association of India, said: “Information technology companies, software companies and call centres that provide online services to the UK or the US east coast are the worst affected.”
Rafaat Hindy, from the Egyptian ministry, said: “Despite this being an international cable affecting many Gulf and Arab countries, we are closest to it and so we have a lot of responsibility.
“We are working as fast as we can.”
It is thought that up to 70 per cent of web services in Egypt, and 60 per cent in India, were disrupted yesterday. There were reports that phone and internet difficults had spread to Yemen, Sudan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.
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