Another undersea Internet cable damaged in Mideast

AFP - Sunday, February 3

NEW
DELHI (AFP) - - Another Middle East undersea Internet cable has been
damaged, adding to disruption in Indian online services caused when
several lines were cut earlier this week, a cable operating firm said
Saturday.

The
Falcon cable was cut 56 kilometres (35 miles) from Dubai, between Oman
and the United Arab Emirates, according to its owner FLAG Telecom, part
of India's Reliance Communications.

The company said on its
website that a repair ship had been notified and was expected to arrive
at the site in the next few days.

The cause of the latest cable damage was not immediately known.

Flag
Telecom owns another undersea cable which was damaged off Egypt on
Wednesday in the Mediterranean. Indian media reports have attributed
that damage to a ship's anchor which dropped on the cable.

On the same day in Kuwait, the government reported two cables damaged by "weather conditions and maritime traffic."

The
cable damage has left India's vital outsourcing industry grappling with
major communications disruptions and businesses saying they could take
up to two weeks to return to normal.

It has also disrupted Internet service across the Middle East and other parts of South Asia.

A
repair ship was expected to arrive by next Tuesday to restore the FLAG
Telecom cable that was damaged off Egypt, the company said.

Smaller
Indian firms will be harder hit as they depend on a single service
provider, said R.S Perhar, secretary of the Internet Service Providers'
Association of India (ISPAI).

"But traffic has already started moving after being re-routed," Perhar said.

Around 90 percent of the services were expected to be restored by Sunday, the ISPAI said.

India's
11-billion-dollar outsourcing industry is made up of 1,250 firms that
deliver services ranging from answering customer queries to processing
credit card and mortgage applications.

The industry employs
700,000 people, serving clients mainly in the United States and Europe
that sought to cut costs by farming out work to the country.

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