Breakage on SEA-ME-WE 3 telecom cable fixed

The South-East Asia-Middle East-Western Europe 3, an optical submarine telecommunications cable linking these regions, was damaged during a construction activity here, but was fixed within hours, a senior Kerala government officer said.

State IT Secretary M Sivasankar told PTI on Tuesday night that a breakage was reported in the SEA-ME-WE3 at Kundannoor here during the construction work of an overbridge.

He said there was a cut on the terrestrial path of the SEA-ME-WE3 from 2.30 pm to 7 pm.

It was down for four to five hours, but the local customers were not affected much as the SAFE (South Africa Far East cable -- an optical fibre submarine communications cable linking Melkbosstrand, South Africa to Penang, Malaysia) was also connected to Kochi, Sivasankar added.

The Chennai and Mumbai lines were also connected to Kochi, so there was not much of a problem, the officer said.

The SEA-ME-WE3 is shared by international network providers like AT&T and others, so it might have affected them, officials said.

They added it appeared that their Mumbai-Singapore link was broken.

VSNL and Reliance telecommunication service providers were affected.

"But since VSNL has safety lines, the Internet services were not affected. By 5 pm, the services were restored. The Reliance services were also fully restored by 7 pm," an official said.