Three Egyptian divers damaged three undersea cables near Alexandia Port, and India's internet speeds have come down to a crawl.
What happened? Are our internet lifelines so vulnerable?
According to newspaper reports --
"The current outages that affect three of the eight communications cables that connect India to the rest of the world — SMW-4, IMEWE and EIG — are likely to impact services provided by Bharti Airtel, Tata Telecommunications, Reliance Communications and public sector service providers BSNL/MTNL."
Which are these eight cables? What do these acronyms stand for?
- SMW-4 (South-East Asia-Middle East-Western Europe-4): One of the eight cables carrying traffic between Egypt and Europe. SMW-4 also carries voice and data communications between 15 countries, including Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Algeria and France.
- IMEWE (India-Middle East-Western Europe): is a 13,000 km cable system between India and France. It has cable landing stations at Mumbai, Karachi, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Lebanon, Italy and France.
- EIG (Europe India Gateway): Connects India with 11 European, African and West Asian nations.
What about the other five cables?
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LINKS & REFERENCES
Kurup, Deepa (2013): DUDE, WHAT'S WRONG WITH MY INTERNET SPEED?, The Hindu, 31Apr2013 ---url--- http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/technology/internet/dude-whats-wrong-with-my-internet-speed/article4564798.ece
Economic Times: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/news-by-industry/telecom/bsnls-internet-capacity-down-due-to-cuts-in-undersea-cable/articleshow/19307846.cms
Ghosh, Sauvik (2013): http://www.livemint.com/Industry/dzPwMJvhTIkNmyjBavchvO/International-communication-links-in-India-to-be-hit-for-two.html
http://www.livemint.com/Politics/RhHb2bR1ZVIaarxSF5VqlK/Egypt-arrests-scuba-divers-accused-of-cutting-Internet-cable.html
