Mediterranean Submarine Cable Cut

 

Wow, big fiber cut yesterday, about a year after the one near Taiwan. If you’re in the Middle East, you know: Internet service is disrupted in Egypt, the Gulf Region and to India, too:

Egypt’s Telecommunications Ministry said a communications cable in the Mediterranean was cut, disrupting 70 percent 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.

Seems the cut was somewhere between Palermo, Sicily, and Alexandria, Egypt. That sounds like the South East Asia-Middle East-West Europe 4 (SEA-ME-WE 4) cable, which has 17 landing points connected:

    1. Marseilles, France
    2. Annaba, Algeria
    3. Bizerte, Tunisia
    4. Palermo, Italy
    5. Alexandria, Egypt
    6. Cairo, Egypt (overland)
    7. Suez, Egypt (overland/return to submarine)
    8. Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
    9. Fujairah, United Arab Emirates
    10. Karachi, Pakistan
    11. Mumbai, India
    12. Colombo, Sri Lanka
    13. Chennai, India
    14. Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh
    15. Satun, Thailand
    16. Melaka/Malacca, Malaysia
    17. Tuas, Singapore

Our friends at SES NEW SKIES probably had their phones ringing off the hook yesterday. Best remedy for fiber cuts is a satcom backup. That’s the "secret sauce" in a well-run network.