Sunday, February 3, 2008

Another cable damaged, no impact on Net services

fter the snapping of two undersea cables off Eqypt coast, another internet cable -- Falcon, which is owned by Flag Telecom, has been damaged in the Middle East but it is unlikely to affect internet operations across India.

Reliance Communications-owned Flag Telecom reported the cut in Falcon cable yesterday morning, according to the information posted on the company's website.

"The damage in Falcon cable will not affect Internet services across India as it does not carry any traffic concerning our country," Internet Service Providers Association of India President Rajesh Chharia said.

The cable was cut 56 km away from Dubai, UAE on the segment between UAE and Oman. The company said it was arranging restoration of circuits for customers covered under pre-planned restoration service.

The repair ship has been notified and expected to reach the site in the next few days, it said.

About 50-60 per cent of the capacity was affected due to rupture in the two undersea cables namely SEMEWE-4 Cable (SMW-4) and FLAG Cable on Wednesday's night, which connect India to Western Europe, due to anchoring of ships near Alexandria.

However, all the internet links in the country were restored yesterday after Internet Service Providers shifted their traffic to other alternate route.

It would take 10-12 days to repair the damaged cables and shift the traffic back to them.

VSNL, Reliance and Bharti Airtel were in constant touch with Telecom Egypt to ensure speedy repair of the two submarine cables, the Department of Telecom had said after reviewing the situation.



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