Undersea cable cuts in the Red Sea disrupted internet services across multiple regions including India, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the UAE. These cuts have slowed down connectivity and increased delays, particularly affecting cloud and network service. Microsoft announced via a status website that the Mideast “may experience increased latency due to undersea fiber cuts in the Red Sea.” The software giant, in a further update, said that Azure services in the Middle East are back online.
What makes Red Sea critical
The Red Sea is a critical telecommunications route, connecting Europe to Africa and Asia via Egypt. As per reports, almost 17% of the world’s internet data flows through this route, meaning any disruption can have wide-ranging consequences.According to a Bloomberg report, fixing undersea cables in the region is challenging, especially with ongoing Houthi attacks on ships in the area.
What caused Red Sea cable cuts
According to an AP report, undersea cables can be cut by anchors dropped from ships, but can also be targeted in attacks. The latest cuts to the lines come as Yemen’s Houthi rebels remain locked in a series of attacks targeting Israel over the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip. Israel has responded with airstrikes, including one that killed top leaders within the rebel movement.Moammar al-Eryani, the information minister with Yemen’s internationally recognized government that opposes the Houthis and is based in southern Yemen, issued a statement saying the cable cuts “cannot be isolated from the series of direct attacks carried out by the Houthi militia.”“What is happening today in the Red Sea should serve as a wake-up call for the international community, which must take a firm stance to stop these escalating threats and protect the digital infrastructure that serves as the lifeline of the modern world,” al-Eryani said, as reported by AP.
Red Sea cables cut: Regions impacted
As per reports, impacted regions include Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, home to Dubai and Abu Dhabi, and India. In a statement, Pakistan Telecommunications Co. Ltd., a telecommunication giant in the country, noted that the cuts had taken place. in Kuwait, authorities also said the FALCON GCX cable running through the Red Sea had been cut, causing disruptions in the small, oil-rich nation.
Red Sea cables cut: Systems impacted
According to network monitoring company NetBlocks, the outages are attributed to failures affecting the SMW4 and IMEWE cable systems near Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. In a post shared on the social media site Mastodon, NetBlocks wrote: “A series of subsea cable outages in the Red Sea has degraded internet connectivity in multiple countries, including #Pakistan and #India; the incident is attributed to failures affecting the SMW4 and IMEWE cable systems near Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.”SMW4 or South East Asia–Middle East–Western Europe 4 cable is run by Tata Communications, while IMEWE is run by another consortium overseen by Alcatel Submarine Networks.“Meanwhile, similar internet disruptions have been observed on Etilasat and Du networks in the United Arab Emirates, resulting in slow speeds and intermittent access as engineers work to resolve the issue impacting multiple countries,” NetBlocks later updated.