Live India : Internet services disrupted in India
Internet services have been disrupted throughout the country following a major international cable breakdown in the Mediterranean sea.
According to reports, a ship anchoring off Egypt’s Alexandria coast cut through the Indian-owned FLAG and also the SEA-ME-WE cable on Wednesday, leading to an unprecedented disruption in international connectivity.
Nearly, 50-60 per cent capacity remained down in the country following the damage of SEA-ME-We 3 and SEA-ME-WE 4 cables that connects Mumbai to East Coast of the USA and the UK.
“The repair will take another 15-20 days,” Internet Service Providers Association of India president Rajesh Chharia said. Although repair teams have rushed to the Egyptian coast to fix the problem and a ‘low grade’ service is likely to be activated soon.
Indian Internet services were badly hit because the damaged cables are a channel for traffic to the United States and Europe.
Many critical operations have already been badly affected by the disruption to the Internet service, although business process outsourcing units in India say that they have not been badly affected.
However, quick move by repair teams to find alternative routes have saved the services from totally collapsing and operations at major stock exchanges in the region were not affected, although they remained painfully slow.
Meanwhile, reports said that almost 60 per cent of India’s Internet users were affected, including corporations and individuals.