Update On Internet Connectivity And International Voice Calls in UAE
This statement is a follow on to the degradation of the international voice call service on Tuesday, 30 January due to the cuts on submarine cables of FLAG Europe-Asia and SEA-ME-WE4, that occurred at approx 12km north of Alexandria. This incident, which has been largely covered by the local, regional and international media over the past two days, impacted international and regional telecom services from operators across the Gulf, Egypt Middle East and India.
du has been informed a few hours ago of a new incident on the FLAG FALCON cable, where a new cable was cut within the Arabian Gulf. The cause of damage and exact location have not yet been identified.
The new development has added further complications to the existing cuts on the FLAG Europe-Asia and SEA-ME-WE4 cables. This morning’s cable cut has impacted all international voice calls through the du network. Severe congestion and degradation of international voice calls have occurred as a result of this morning’s incident. National calls, national SMS and internet access were not and continue not to be affected by this new incident.
du contacted etisalat promptly and started rerouting its international voice traffic through some of etisalat’s international routes with immediate effect.
This new incident like the previous one is not under du’s control. However, du is committed to keep its customers informed and updated on developments in this regard.
On this occasion du would like to thank etisalat for their timely response and cooperation at this unanticipated time of crisis.
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Flag Telecom will start repairs next week on a damaged submarine telecommunications cable linking Egypt and Italy. A repair ship is expected to reach the site of the damage, 8.3 kilometers from Alexandria, Egypt, on Tuesday. The repair will take a week to complete, Flag Telecom said Friday.
Other stories on this topic
Breaks on Wednesday in the Flag Telecom Europe-Asia cable, owned by India's Reliance Communications, and on the South East Asia-Middle East-West Europe 4 (SEA-ME-WE 4) cable, owned by a consortium, disrupted Internet and other communications to the Middle East and India.
Flag said the Europe-Asia cable was cut at 8 a.m. GMT on Wednesday. The company also said it was able to restore circuits to some customers and was switching to alternative routes for others. A large number of customers in India were shifted by their service providers from the Middle East links to Asia-Pacific routes. But the new routing increased the time-lag heard on long-distance telephone calls, and also led to degradation of Internet service to the U.K. and the East coast of the U.S., said Rajesh Chharia, president of the Internet Service Providers' Association of India (ISPAI).
Some analysts said that consumers and smaller customers were suffering even as providers tried to meet their service-level agreements (SLAs) with large corporate customers.
The Indian government announced late Thursday that Indian service providers, including members of the SEA-ME-WE 4 consortium, are in constant touch with Telecom Egypt to ensure the speedy repair of the SEA-ME-WE 4 and Flag cables connecting India to Western Europe. Repairing this type of submarine optical fiber cable typically takes 15 days, but the Indian ministry of communications and information technology expects this link will be completely restored within 10 days.
Another submarine Internet cable owned by Flag Telecom, the Falcon cable between the United Arab Emirates and Oman, was cut on Friday at 6 a.m. GMT, at a location 56 kilometers from Dubai, Flag said Friday. A repair ship has been notified, and is expected to arrive at the site of the damage in the next few days, the company said.
The IDG News Service is a Network World affiliate.
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This statement is a follow on to the degradation of the international voice call service on Tuesday, 30 January due to the cuts on submarine cables of FLAG Europe-Asia and SEA-ME-WE4, that occurred at approx 12km north of Alexandria. This incident, which has been largely covered by the local, regional and international media over the past two days, impacted international and regional telecom services from operators across the Gulf, Egypt Middle East and India.
du has been informed a few hours ago of a new incident on the FLAG FALCON cable, where a new cable was cut within the Arabian Gulf. The cause of damage and exact location have not yet been identified.
The new development has added further complications to the existing cuts on the FLAG Europe-Asia and SEA-ME-WE4 cables. This morning’s cable cut has impacted all international voice calls through the du network. Severe congestion and degradation of international voice calls have occurred as a result of this morning’s incident. National calls, national SMS and internet access were not and continue not to be affected by this new incident.
du contacted etisalat promptly and started rerouting its international voice traffic through some of etisalat’s international routes with immediate effect.
This new incident like the previous one is not under du’s control. However, du is committed to keep its customers informed and updated on developments in this regard.
On this occasion du would like to thank etisalat for their timely response and cooperation at this unanticipated time of crisis.
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Flag Telecom will start repairs next week on a damaged submarine telecommunications cable linking Egypt and Italy. A repair ship is expected to reach the site of the damage, 8.3 kilometers from Alexandria, Egypt, on Tuesday. The repair will take a week to complete, Flag Telecom said Friday.
Other stories on this topic
Breaks on Wednesday in the Flag Telecom Europe-Asia cable, owned by India's Reliance Communications, and on the South East Asia-Middle East-West Europe 4 (SEA-ME-WE 4) cable, owned by a consortium, disrupted Internet and other communications to the Middle East and India.
Flag said the Europe-Asia cable was cut at 8 a.m. GMT on Wednesday. The company also said it was able to restore circuits to some customers and was switching to alternative routes for others. A large number of customers in India were shifted by their service providers from the Middle East links to Asia-Pacific routes. But the new routing increased the time-lag heard on long-distance telephone calls, and also led to degradation of Internet service to the U.K. and the East coast of the U.S., said Rajesh Chharia, president of the Internet Service Providers' Association of India (ISPAI).
Some analysts said that consumers and smaller customers were suffering even as providers tried to meet their service-level agreements (SLAs) with large corporate customers.
The Indian government announced late Thursday that Indian service providers, including members of the SEA-ME-WE 4 consortium, are in constant touch with Telecom Egypt to ensure the speedy repair of the SEA-ME-WE 4 and Flag cables connecting India to Western Europe. Repairing this type of submarine optical fiber cable typically takes 15 days, but the Indian ministry of communications and information technology expects this link will be completely restored within 10 days.
Another submarine Internet cable owned by Flag Telecom, the Falcon cable between the United Arab Emirates and Oman, was cut on Friday at 6 a.m. GMT, at a location 56 kilometers from Dubai, Flag said Friday. A repair ship has been notified, and is expected to arrive at the site of the damage in the next few days, the company said.
The IDG News Service is a Network World affiliate.
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