India Hit By Middle-East Internet Outage

Internet connectivity in India and the $11-billion business process outsourcing (BPO) industry faced a major disruption Thursday after damage to two undersea cables in the Mediterranean Sea, off the coast of Alexandria in Egypt.

"Some 60 percent of the bandwidth has been affected after the damage," Internet Service Providers Association of India (ISPAI) President Rajesh Chharia said, as Internet surfers in the country struggled with slow speeds and repeated breakdowns.

"The load is being borne by the remaining 40 percent," Chharia told IANS, adding that large IT companies like Wipro and Infosys Technologies were not affected as much since they had backups to reroute their traffic through the Pacific.

But smaller and medium-sized outsourcing companies were facing an acute shortage of bandwidth. "The majority of IT companies and call centres using the Atlantic route to connect with the US have been badly affected," he added.

The National Association of Software and Service Companies (Nasscom) estimates the size of India's outsourcing industry at $11 billion, with more than 700,000 employees. The industry caters to 25 countries with a 40 percent market share.

The extent of financial damage to BPO companies was still being ascertained.

According to reports from Cairo, two undersea cables were cut near Alexandria on Egypt's north coast and one of them belonged to FLAG Telecom, which is a part of the Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group.

Chharia said firms serving the US east coast and some parts of the UK are the worst affected.

"They have to arrange for backups soon. Otherwise, they have to accept the poor quality for some time until the fiber is restored."

Quoting Egyptian agencies, reports said the damage was caused during anchoring of a ship there. Apart from India, the breakdown affected Egypt, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait, and Bahrain.

Among India's neighbors, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka also reported disruptions.

"Slow connectivity, choking and other problems have been caused across India due the cable damage," Chharia said, adding it may take 10-15 days for normalcy to be restored.

The major test will come on Friday, the first day of the month, when thousands of foreign workers are expected to descend on the company's 53 branches to send money home.