It is often easy to forget the backbone that the digital highway sits on, however, the recent instances of severed undersea cables has highlighted the fragility and susceptibility of the global communications and internet infrastructure.
At the end of January, two submarine telecom cables in the Mediterranean were cut by a ship's anchor. The cables are operated by Flag Telecom and SEA-ME-WE-4. 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, is a submarine cable system linking South East Asia to Europe via the Indian subcontinent and the Middle East.
According to Flag, the FLAG Europe-Asia cable was reported cut at on 30 January. The company confirmed the location of the outage as 8.3 kilometers from Alexandria, Egypt on the segment between Egypt and Italy. The cable was repaired on 9th February, a day ahead of schedule according to the operator.
As a result of the cut, Internet services were disrupted in large parts of the Middle East and India with disruption to 70% of the nationwide network in Egypt, and India suffering up to 60% disruption.
On February 1, another cable operated by Flag was cut. The Falcon cable was cut 56km from Dubai between Oman and the United Arab Emirates. The FALCON Cable was restored between Dubai (UAE) and Al SEEB (Oman) on 1 0February.
On this occasion, the effect on India has been mitigated as the Falcon cable does not carry India-specific traffic. Despite the volume of traffic that usually passes through the broken cables, the Egyptian stock market said the incident had no effect on trading, though some traders said transactions had been slower and that several international trading orders failed to go through. The central bank expressed its frustration with the service and said it would seek alternatives for the banking system if similar disruptions were to happen again.
Although cuts of this frequency are rare, submarine cable systems are susceptible to damage: for example the 2006 Hengchun earthquake on December 26, rendered numerous cables near Taiwan inoperable.
A fourth undersea telecoms cable linking Qatar to the UAE was damaged between the Qatari island of Haloul and the UAE island of Das, although a spokesman said they believed the disruption was not the result of physical damage but due to a power fault.
In India, the Department of Telecom is being encouraged to create a mechanism to ensure the country's communication network has greater resiliency and protection against possible future sabotage. One mechanism suggestion, reported in local press, is to interconnect all undersea cables owned by Indian companies which would enable them to share each other's network in case of a crisis. There is also a move to strengthen the National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI), which would keep the domestic traffic secure and strong.
With India enjoying increasing rates of outsourcing from international banks, financial institutions and software providers, the Government will be keen to ensure it avoids a repeat of disruption of this magnitude. If it doesn't it may find companies reevaluating their outsourcing needs and considering locations closer to home.