Cable link restoration in next 10 days

New Delhi, Jan 31 (UNI) VSNL, Reliance and Bharti Airtel Ltd are in constant touch with Telecom Egypt to ensure the speedy repair of the SEMEWE-4 Cable (SMW-4) and FLAG Cable connecting India to Western Europe, as the disruption has hit the international long distance traffic and internet traffic across the globe.

The disorder occurred near Alexandria off the coast of Egypt when an anchoring ship off Egypt's Alexandria coast damaged Indian-owned FLAG cable and also SEA-ME-WE last morning.

The International long distance traffic and Internet traffic to Europe and the US has got affected due to this fault.

Besides India, traffic of other countries is also affected.

According to an official statement, the links are expected to be completely restored by the ILD operators within 10 days.

Normally repair of such type of submarine optical fibre cable takes 15 days time for restoration.

The circuits working on these cables are being shifted by the International Long Distance operators viz VSNL, Reliance and Bharti Airtel Ltd, to other cables such as SMW-3 cable and pacific route cables to restore the telecommunication links, the statement added.

Out of total links working on these cables, about 30 per cent links are restored and efforts are being made on war-footing for providing alternate path to remaining links, it said.

UNI SBA PBB RN2011