SEA-ME-WE 4 continues to cause problems in several regions

Apr 26, 2010 15:33 GMT  ·  By

With Internet access being ubiquitous in some parts of the world, it’s easy to forget just how fragile the entire system is. A major undersea communications cable, SEA-ME-WE 4, linking Europe, the Middle East and South Asia was severed a couple of weeks ago and, as repairs drag on, more regions are feeling the hit. Several countries in the Middle East have been struggling with slow Internet and connection problems and it looks like India and other countries near it will be next.

Internet users in India are bracing themselves for a frustrating few days as repairs at the undersea cable will affect connectivity in the country. Users are warned that they may experience problems over the next three days as maintenance work will be carried out off the coast of Italy. Companies are said to have taken steps to minimize the disruption, but problems are still likely to occur, especially when trying to access websites hosted in Europe.

The SEA-ME-WE 4 undersea cable was cut a couple of weeks ago, wreaking havoc with the Internet connectivity in the Middle East. Since much of the traffic in and out of the region, 89 percent, is carried just by this single cable, there was little spare capacity to go around. The cable was due to be repaired last week, but it now looks like the works have dragged on.

Problems like this are not exactly common, but are not entirely unheard of either. India is no stranger to issues with undersea communication cables. A couple of years ago, a cut cable took out half of the country’s bandwidth capacity resulting in serious disruption. The problems dragged on for almost a couple of weeks, so, if everything goes smoothly this time, the four days of issues forecast shouldn’t be that much of a problem.