Dubai: du said on Saturday it had re-routed data and international voice traffic through alternative cable systems in the Far East and western United States after cuts in submarine cable systems located between Alexandria and Italy severely affected voice and internet services.
The UAE telecom operator said the damage to three cables resulted in high levels of network congestion and degradation of international voice service and data traffic, affecting all customers in the UAE, Levant, Egypt and parts of Africa.
etisalat, the other UAE telecom service provider, is also using alternative routes to ensure continuity of service.
Meanwhile, a French ship on Saturday took experts to repair the broken cables, France Telecom said.
The France Telecom cable ship Raymond Croze left Seyne-sur-Mer, southern France, on Friday night and was expected to be on the scene of the damage, between Sicily and Tunisia, on Sunday, a company spokesman said.
The disruption also affected Asian countries as far away as Singapore, Malaysia, India and Pakistan.
Egypt announced on Friday that it was rerouting internet services to back-up cables and satellite.
An Egyptian Communications Ministry official said the disruption reduced Egypt's internet capacity by about 80 per cent, while consumers said the internet service was either non-existent or very slow.
In Pakistan, internet service provider Micronet Broadband said its customers were facing degraded internet services because of "issues" on the cables.
Micronet engineer Wajahat Basharat said on Saturday internet traffic was congested and slow and some of it was being diverted to other routes.
Kuwait's Telecommunications Ministry said late on Friday it was trying to secure continued services until the damage to the cables was repaired and asked for users' understanding.
The International Cable Protection Committee, an association of submarine cable operators, said it was "aware of multiple submarine cable failures in the Eastern Mediterranean area that may be affecting the speed of internet communications on some routes."
Officials with AT&T Inc and Verizon Communications, the two largest US-based carriers, said that some customers in the Middle East had lost all service, while others were experiencing partial disruptions on Internet connections.
Verizon had rerouted some of its traffic by sending it across the Atlantic, then the United States, across the Pacific, and on to the Middle East.
The Cables
SEA-ME-WE4 is 20,000 km long and links 14 countries. It runs from France through the Red Sea to India and then Singapore.
SEA-ME-WE3 is 40,000 km long and links 33 countries. It runs from northern Germany to Spain, the Red Sea, India and Southeast Asia, from where two branches extend as far as Australia and South Korea.
FLAG Europe Asia (FEA) is 27,000 km long and runs from Britain through the Red Sea to India, Southeast Asia and Japan.
By Staff Reporter
© Gulf News 2008
