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| Severed cables disrupt internet | |
| (about 6 hours later) | |
| Internet services have been disrupted in large parts of the Middle East and India following damage to two undersea cables in the Mediterranean. | |
| There was disruption to 70% of the nationwide network in Egypt, a government official told Reuters. | There was disruption to 70% of the nationwide network in Egypt, a government official told Reuters. |
| India also suffered up to 60% disruption, a body representing internet service providers said. | |
| UK firms such as British Airways have told the BBC that call centres have been affected by the outage. | |
| International calls, which have also been affected, are being rerouted to work around the problem, the airline said. | |
| 'Degraded performance' | |
| Disruption also occurred in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, reported the Associated Press. | |
| In Dubai, at least two internet service providers (ISPs) were affected. | |
| An official at the provider, DU, told AP that a fault in a cable between Alexandria, Egypt, and Palermo, Italy, was to blame. | |
| DU issued a statement to alert customers to "a degradation in internet services and international voice calls for some customers during peak times. | |
| The company said it was due to "cuts in two international submarine cable systems in the Mediterranean Sea this morning | |
| "We are working actively with the submarine cable system operators (FLAG Telecom and SEA-ME-WE 4) to ascertain the reasons for the cables being cut," it said. | |
| FLAG Telecoms operate the Fiber-Optic Link Around the Globe (FLAG), a 28,000km (17,400 mile) long submarine communications cable. | |
| SEA-ME-WE 4, or the South East Asia-Middle East-West Europe 4 project, as it is known, is a submarine cable system linking South East Asia to Europe via the Asian subcontinent and Middle East. | |
| Repair work | |
| Neither of the cable operators have confirmed the cause or location of the outage but some reports suggest it was caused by a ship's anchor near the port of Alexandria in Egypt. | |
| One Indian internet service provider, Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd (VSNL), linked the problems in India to the disruption in Egypt. | |
| Egypt's Telecommunications Ministry said it would probably take several days for internet services to return to normal following the disruption on Wednesday. | Egypt's Telecommunications Ministry said it would probably take several days for internet services to return to normal following the disruption on Wednesday. |
| Emergency teams were trying to find alternative communication routes, including satellites, AP was told. | Emergency teams were trying to find alternative communication routes, including satellites, AP was told. |
| The ministry's Rafaat Hindy said: "Despite this being an international cable affecting many Gulf and Arab countries, we are closest to it and so we have a lot of responsibility. | The ministry's Rafaat Hindy said: "Despite this being an international cable affecting many Gulf and Arab countries, we are closest to it and so we have a lot of responsibility. |
| "We are working as fast as we can." | "We are working as fast as we can." |