Internet services to be restored by evening

Internet services in the country, which were disrupted following a major international cable breakdown, would be restored by this evening.

"Only 2% of the links are down today and we expect all the links to be restored by the evening," Rajesh Chharia of Internet Service Providers Association of India told PTI.

The internet services were disrupted on Wednesday night due to damage to two international undersea cables off Egypt coast.

About 50-60% of the capacity was affected due to the rupture in the cables, which connect India to Western Europe, due to anchoring of ships near Alexandria.

He said big BPO firms and companies were not affected as they had their back-up plan but the fault might have affected small BPOs which operate only through a single route.

Majority of the firms are trying to restore their connections through a different route. International long distance and Internet traffic to Europe and the US got affected due to the breakdown.

The Department of Telecom had yesterday reviewed the situation with senior officials and service providers, and said the link would be restored by the ILD operators within 10 days by expediting the repair.

Service providers VSNL, Reliance and Bharti Airtel are in constant touch with Telecom Egypt to ensure speedy repair of the two submarine cables SEMEWE-4 Cable (SMW-4) and FLAG Cable. The circuits working on these cables are being shifted by the three firms to other cables such as SMW-3 cable and pacific route cables to restore the telecommunication links.