Internet Slow Down - 3 Major Undersea Cables Cut

3 Major cables namely: Sea Me We3 partly, Sea Me We4 and FLAG have been cut at 7:28am, “7:33am and 8:06am respectively. All of these cables are located in the Mediterranean between Sicily and Tunisia. There's just something about undersea internet cables that seem to have them get severed in groups. The causes of these cables cut are not yet clear.

The internet traffic between Europe & Asia is highly affected. The workaround done for a while is that, the traffic has been rerouted through U.S.A. Though the traffic from Europe to Algeria & Tunisia is not affected. A first appraisal at 7:44 am UTC gave an estimate of the following impact on the voice traffic (in percentage of out of service capacity): Source

• Saudi Arabia: 55% out of service
• Djibouti: 71% out of service
• Egypt: 52% out of service
• United Arab Emirates: 68% out of service
• India: 82% out of service
• Lebanon: 16% out of service
• Malaysia: 42% out of service
• Maldives: 100% out of service
• Pakistan: 51% out of service
• Qatar: 73% out of service
• Syria: 36% out of service
• Taiwan: 39% out of service
• Yemen: 38% out of service
• Zambia: 62% out of service
  

Reports from France Telecom state that, they immediately alerted one of the two maintenance boats based in the Mediterranean area. This France Telecom Marine cable ship based at Seyne-sur-Mer has received its mobilization order early this afternoon and will cast off tonight at 3:00 am with 20 kilometers spare cable on board.

It should be on location on Monday morning for a relief mission. Priority will be given to the recovery of the Sea Me We4 cable, then on the Sea Me We3. By December 25th, Sea Me We4 could be operating. By December 31st, the situation should be back to normal.