DUBAI, 3 February 2008 — A United Arab Emirates telecoms operator fears damage to an undersea cable off Dubai could further disrupt Internet services after two cables were cut earlier this week, a newspaper reported yesterday.
Cable operating firm FLAG Telecom, part of India’s Reliance Communications, said earlier on its website that the Falcon cable had been cut 56 km from Dubai, between Oman and the UAE.
The latest break came after two cables on the Mediterranean seabed were damaged on Wednesday, causing widespread disruption to Internet services in Egypt, Gulf Arab states and South Asia.
UAE telecoms provider “du” said in a statement published by the English-language daily Khaleej Times that the new cut could hamper efforts to restore services hit by the earlier damage.
“du has been informed of new cable damage on the Falcon cable. The new development has added further complications to the existing damage” to the other lines, the paper quoted the firm as saying.
The UAE provider said the earlier damage had caused “severe congestion and degradation of international voice calls.” A spokesman for the UAE’s largest telecoms operator, Etisalat, told AFP that it did not use the Falcon cable and was therefore not affected.