ALKHOBAR, 31 January 2008 — A fault in a Mediterra-nean undersea cable network has caused significant disruption in international data communications.
In the Kingdom, business and home users of Internet struggled to function yesterday when Saudi Telecom (STC) lost more than 50 percent of its international online connectivity.
In a terse statement, STC said: “We would like to inform you that we have lost some of our international links due to a cable cut outside the Kingdom, which is causing slow browsing for all of our customers.”
STC was unable to provide any clue as to how long it would take to restore its service, notifying Internet service providers (ISPs) that the problem would continue for an “unknown” duration. In the end, the disruption continued throughout the entire business day.
STC became aware of the loss of connectivity at 7:30 a.m. yesterday. Because ISPs were able to use available bandwidth to continue delivery of e-mail, it was not immediately apparent to businesses that there was a problem.
The magnitude of the issue became clear when companies and organizations tried to access remote systems. It took ISPs most of the morning to notify tens of thousands of customers that there would be no quick fix to the problem.
The undersea fiber-optic FLAG Cable which makes a landing at Jeddah sustained damage and it was necessary to use a submarine system to make repairs.
The same cable fault disrupted 70 percent of Egypt’s Internet network, the Egyptian Telecommunications Ministry said. In a statement, the ministry advised that it was not known how the cable was cut but that services would probably take several days to return to normal.
The scale of the impact of the disruption on Egypt’s financial services was not immediately clear. Trading at Egypt’s stock exchange continued during the day’s session, but one stockbroker said the disruption had an impact on some international orders.
The disruption stopped sales of airline tickets at Cairo International Airport but did not cause any delays in scheduled flights, said Ashraf Hassan, sales manager at EgyptAir.
In India, the Internet Service Providers’ Association reported a major disruption in service due to the cable cut.
“There has been a 50 to 60 percent cut in bandwidth,” Rajesh Chharia, the president of the association, told reporters.
Due to the huge amount of bandwidth provided by the FLAG Cable, it is not feasible to replace such a loss using satellite connectivity.
This is not the first time the Kingdom has suffered a disruption in international connectivity due to problems with undersea cables, and yesterday’s situation demonstrates how increasing reliance on these systems can cause massive inconvenience if not outright business crises when Internet connectivity disappears.
“It is impossible to run any sizable, modern multi-branch operations in a country the size of Saudi Arabia without excellent Internet and communications links,” said David Malloch, OKI Country Manager, Saudi Arabia. “We have been struggling for the last three years to implement online order processing, which requires fast, reliable and affordable connectivity. As of yet, we have not met that goal successfully.”
Yesterday’s incident was outside STC’s control, but ISPs cope weekly with Internet outages directly attributed to STC. According to a technical and operations manager of one ISP, who asked to remain anonymous, “it is usually the ISPs that call STC to advise them that there is no connectivity. It is also the ISPs who then deal with tens of thousands of angry customers. There needs to be more accountability from the primary provider.”
