The major disruption for the second time in less than a year of Internet traffic passing though the Middle East to Asia is a serious matter. It appears the same network of submarine cabling that was damaged in the Mediterranean last January has been hit again. Indeed, the damage appears more serious, since reportedly three of the four main fiber optic cables have been damaged whereas earlier it has been just two.
As a result of the severance of this data artery, an estimated 65 percent of all Internet traffic within and passing through our region is being affected.
The brilliance of the Internet’s design is that there is generally a range of different links through which data can be routed. However, when key failures like this occur, terabytes of re-routed traffic trying to cram through now limited bandwidth will inevitably be moving more slowly.
For commercial users this is once again threatening disaster. Traders around the world who deal over the Internet will be unsure the prices they are seeing are bang up-to-date while they will fear that their buy and sell orders will be delayed. Worse, for call centers in India which rely on Internet telephony, the latest outage threatens disaster, coming as it does just days before Christmas, when Internet retail business reaches a peak in Europe and the Americas.
Some analysts have forecast severe economic effects. This being the case, it is time to repeat the question that we asked just ten months ago. How can this disruption to such a crucial data network be permitted to happen?
Accidents are inevitable. It seems that cables off Alexandria may have been severed on both occasions by a vessel dragging its anchor along the seabed. Now from an engineering point of view, it may be extremely difficult to build cables sufficiently armored or strong, to resist the immense pull of ship’s anchor. Why have the cables not been buried at a safe depth, in the same way that vulnerable oil and gas pipelines are often protected when they approach high-risk areas such as anchorages? Even more disturbing is the news that four vital cables have effectively been laid side by side, thus increasing the probability that damage to one will also become damage to the others.
Leaving aside these operational issues, it is clear that the companies who provide the high-speed arteries of the Internet that have become such essential part of both business and social life around the globe, have to look urgently at their strategy. Internet usage continues to surge, by some estimates, growing more than 60 percent this year but individual users are demanding ever-greater bandwidth and higher speeds, particularly for video signals. Not only must cable providers be expanding their networks to meet increased demand but they should also be investing in redundancy — extensive spare “pipes” — well away from existing cabling that will ensure further accidental outages of this seriousness do not occur again.
