Internet connections disrupted in Asia due to cut undersea cables

Outages observed in cable systems in the Red Sea.

The South East Asia–Middle East–Western Europe 4 (SMW4) and India–Middle East–Western Europe (IMEWE) cable systems in the Red Sea have reportedly suffered outages due to cuts, resulting in internet disruptions in parts of Asia.

According to global internet monitor Netblocks, the confirmed outages "degraded" online connectivity in countries like Pakistan and India. Citing failures involving the SMW4 and IMEWE cable systems near the Saudi Arabian city of Jeddah, Netblocks also reported internet issues affecting United Arab Emirates-based networks.  

Meanwhile, in an incident update, Microsoft Azure pointed to undersea fiber cuts, the cause of which was not immediately identified and remains unclear as of this writing.

"Network traffic traversing through the Middle East may experience increased latency due to undersea fiber cuts in the Red Sea," Azure told users. "Network traffic continues to not be interrupted as Microsoft has rerouted traffic through alternate network paths.

"We do expect higher latency on some traffic that previously traversed through the Middle East until the undersea fiber cuts are fully addressed. Network traffic that does not traverse through the Middle East is not impacted.

"We will continue to monitor and take actions as necessary including providing daily updates or additional communications if conditions change."

An Associated Press report highlighted that undersea cables can be cut either deliberately or by accident amidst concerns that such infrastructure in the Red Sea can be likely targets of attacks by Yemen’s Houthi rebels.

Operators of the impacted cable systems have yet to shed light on the matter.