Red Sea fiber optic cable breaks, internet in Asia and Middle East is unstable

Microsoft has warned of disruptions to its cloud services due to a broken fiber-optic cable in the Red Sea. There had been concerns that the cables in the Red Sea had been targeted by Houthi forces.

There have been concerns that cables in the Red Sea could be targeted by Houthi forces - Photo: see.news

A broken fiber-optic cable in the Red Sea disrupted internet access in parts of Asia and the Middle East on September 7, experts said. The cause of the problem is still unclear.

In a statement, NetBlocks - an internet access monitoring unit - stated that a series of undersea cable incidents in the Red Sea had reduced internet connectivity in many countries, including India and Pakistan.

NetBlocks also said the incident affected the SMW4 and IMEWE cable systems, near Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia has yet to respond to the report. Meanwhile, in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), internet users on the state-owned Du and Etisalat networks reported slow internet connections.

At the same time, Microsoft warned users of its Microsoft Azure cloud computing service that they may experience service disruptions due to multiple undersea fiber optic cables being broken in the Red Sea region.

Specifically, data traffic passing through the Middle East, originating or terminating in regions in Asia and Europe, may be disrupted more than usual.

"Undersea cable breaks typically take a long time to repair. During this time, we will continue to monitor, adjust, and optimize routing to minimize impact to customers. Microsoft will provide updates daily, or sooner if there are new developments," the company said.

Due to network disruptions, Azure - the world's second-largest cloud service provider after Amazon Web Services (AWS) - had to redirect traffic through alternative routes, resulting in higher-than-usual latency.

There have been concerns that the Red Sea cables could be targeted by Yemen’s Houthi rebels, who want to pressure Israel to end the conflict in the Gaza Strip. However, the Houthis have said they have no plans to attack the undersea cables.

Back to topic

VNA

Source: https://tuoitre.vn/dut-cap-quang-o-bien-do-internet-o-chau-a-va-trung-dong-chap-chon-2025090718231201.htm