IT, BPO cos hit by cable breakdown; restoration by Friday

With three key undersea cables linking West Asia to Europe out of service, IT and BPO companies today faced the problem of slow internet access and congested data traffic as the heavy data-load of the week has started.

Internet Service Providers Association President Rajesh Chharia said that the situation has started getting worse for BPO and IT companies with slow internet speed and the data network congestion becoming very high.

However, Tata Communication sources said the undersea cable -- SEA-ME-WE 4 will be restored by Friday, which would improve the situation. After that the repair work of SEA-ME-WE 3 will start, but SMW 4 has the capacity to carry the load of SMW 3 as well.

Industry officials said SMW 3 would be fully functional by the end of the year.

Bharti and Tata Communications are stakeholders in SMW 4 along with other partners and together both these companies carry up to 25 per cent of the traffic from India to abroad.

Bharti said the cable breakdown has affected the overall traffic between India and Europe.

Bharti Airtel is working with the cable consortium for restoration of services. The voice traffic has been completely normalised.

The company is taking all necessary steps to ensure data services are available to its customers by routing traffic on alternative routes like its i2i undersea cable.

Reliance Communications, which owns the Flag Cable, said it expects by next week to repair its damaged sub-marine cable, which has disrupted internet and phone services in some parts of Middle East and South Asia.