Saudi Telecom (STC) swiftly overcame a disruption in Internet services Friday, a day after breaks in three submarine cables which link Europe and the Middle East have impeded Internet and international telephone services in parts of the Middle East and South Asia. “STC, with its well-developed network and alternative routes assisted by satellite connection, restored Internet services in record time,” said an STC source,. The gravity of the outage, caused by breaks in cables in the Mediterranean off Italy, varied from area to area and according to the service provider. Users in other Middle Eastern countries said Internet service was either non-existent or slow. Egypt's Internet capacity was reduced by about 80 percent. In January, breaks in undersea cables off the Egyptian coast disrupted Internet access in Egypt, the Gulf region and South Asia, forcing service providers to reroute traffic and disrupting some businesses and financial dealings. The International Cable Protection Committee, an association of submarine cable operators, said it was “aware of multiple submarine cable failures in the Eastern Mediterranean area that may be affecting the speed of Internet communications on some routes”. It said in a statement on its website it did not know what had caused the problem. Stephan Beckert, an analyst with the US-based telecommunications market research firm TeleGeography, said the three affected cables were the most direct route for moving traffic between Western Europe and the Middle East.
