Two international submarine cables in the Mediterranean Sea were damaged on Jan. 30, causing significant disruptions to Internet and phone traffic in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, India and all of the Gulf states.
The two damaged cables are the FLAG Europe-Asia cable, operated by FLAG Telecom, and SeaMeWe-4 (South East Asia-Middle East-Western Europe-4), a consortium cable owned jointly by fifteen telecommunications companies. These two cables account for the majority of international communications capacity between Europe and the Middle East.
The two cable cuts leave the older SeaMeWe-3 system as the only cable in service connecting Europe to the Middle East via Egypt.
The cable cuts have reduced the amount of available capacity on this direct route to Europe by 75 percent (620 Gbps). Until service is restored, many carriers in Egypt and the Middle East must now route their European traffic around the globe, through South East Asia and across the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, or use satellite transport to some extent.
Global capacity executives are watching to see whether a new boost in undersea capacity on some routes across the Pacific will disrupt trans-Pacific pricing. Some also have expressed concern that new routes between Europe and India might have the same effect. The latest undersea cable disruption shows how important multiple and diverse routes have become, though.
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