On Sunday evening while I was loading a webpage I experienced a weird, slightly longer than usual lag. I thought it’s my Wifi demonstrating its once-in-a-while lazy attitude but boy, was I wrong. A few minutes into browsing and hitting up my people to check what’s happening, I realised that I wasn’t alone. In fact, this has risen to be a national issue. No, wait, make that international. Internet connectivity across Middle East and Asia has gone for a toss. Now, why is this happening? As the title just suggests, will this internet outage last for six weeks straight? Let’s find out right here!
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What Is Causing This Internet Outage?
According to reports, last weekend several undersea fibre optical cables in the Red Sea were broken or cut. These submarine cables are the lifeblood of internet commmunication, along with satellites and land-based cables. It’s these finger-thin optic cables that hold the world together transmitting millions of packets of data (95% of worldwide traffic), and these have been around since 2005. To give you a clearer picture, I’d say these wouldn’t be a lot more than half-an-inch of thickness. Imagine that! And this has impacted internet connectivity across Middle East and parts of South Asia, including India and its neighbouring countries. It wasn’t initially evident as to what exactly caused the cable cuts, but the failures were later attributed to:
- The SEA-ME-WE-4 and IMEWE cables near Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
- The FALCON GCX cable running through Kuwait
The reason we use these cables over satellites is due to its capacity, profitability and it’s efficiency in providing low latency. Or in simpler words, they transmit over 1 terabit per second with minimum delay at a lower cost. When it comes to satellites, the transmission rate is usually capped at 1 gigabit per second and they are prone to much more delays. Oh yes, they are pretty expensive too. Anyway, so these broken cables have pulled down our internet speeds and managed to cause a bit of havoc to our daily online activities.
Which essentially brings us to next question and that is..
Is The Foundation Of Connectivity This Delicate?
I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one who had this question cross my mind. I mean, don’t cuts happen every now and then? Pretty much like how we get paper cuts on our fingertips or those clumsy moments in the kitchen that gift us mild burns. So, I delved deep into this and discovered that yes, like some of us had suspected, these slim cables break almost always. Thanks to fishing cords hurled into the oceans. Or sea anchors carelessly dropped, cables are broken more often than we expect. Natural hazards are also another key factor that affects connectivity. According to the stats of The International Cable Protection Committee, close to 1.7 million kilometres of subsea cables are in operation around the world, and these experience anywhere between 150 to 200 incidents each year! So, that’s pretty much every other day.
Having said that, these communication systems are pretty resilient. Telecom operators generally play out their capacity across a number of systems, so if one experiences failure, traffic is redirected through another. However, if there is considerable damage in the cable, then this will take longer than usual. Post this incident, Microsoft Azure has taken to the media to report that regional traffic is being redirected via other pathways but there is a chance of increased loading time. As of yesterday, Monday, Sep 8, delays of around 30% have been observed between India and Europe with performance levels inching below the threshold.
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Internet Outage: What’s Happening In The UAE?
It has been confirmed by Netblocks that both Du and Etisalat have been impacted – subscribers of both services are reporting slower speeds and disrupted access. However, there have been no official statements from both telecom providers on the issue.
Latency problems first appeared at 05:45 UTC on 6 September 2025. In its most recent update at 19:52 UTC on 7 September, the Microsoft Azure status page noted: “We do expect higher latency on some traffic that previously traversed through the Middle East. Network traffic that does not traverse through the Middle East is not impacted. We’ll continue to provide daily updates, or sooner if conditions change.”
The cause of the incident remains unclear. While concerns have been raised about potential attacks on Red Sea cables by Yemen’s Houthi rebels, the group has previously denied targeting such infrastructure.
Will Restoration Really Take Six Weeks?
Let’s take a look at the data of 2 past incidents to explore this question further. In 2006, on the day after Christmas, an earthquake that occured off the coast of Taiwan damaged the fibre optic cables in 19 regions across Singapore, Hong Kong and South East Asia. KDDI reports reveal that data communication services were fully restored on Feb 3, 2007. Which is exactly a period of 5 weeks and 4 days. Round it off, yup, six weeks almost. Next, let’s take move onto the Alexandria cable cut that happened in 2008, due to a ship’s anchor. Millions of people across Middle East, Africa and Asia were impacted by the internet outage that lasted for weeks. At the time, it was observed that the repair took around 4 weeks to be completed.
Experts have reported to The National, that internet services in the Emirates could face disruptions for up to six weeks. Fixing the cables is a complex process, and it requires specialised ships to identify the fault, pull the damaged section from the seabed, splice it, and test it before restoration can happen. Depending on the location, weather, and ship availability, this process typically took two to six weeks.
So, while the internet hiccups are being fixed, it’s time to channel your inner patience ninja. Hang tight, maybe catch up on that offline hobby, and soon enough, things will be back to full speed!
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