Undersea robot searches for severed cables

IDG News Service - A robot submarine was scouring the seabed 200 meters under the Mediterranean Sea trying to locate the ends of undersea cables that were cut on Friday, disrupting voice and Internet traffic.

France Telecom said its repair ship the Raymond Croze had reached the site between Sicily and Tunisia on Sunday, where two of its cables had been cut, disrupting traffic between Europe and many countries in Asia and the Middle East.

The robot submarine must now locate the ends of the cables and haul them to the surface for repairs, said Jean-Bernard Orsoni, a spokesman for France Telecom. The company, which is part of a consortium that owns the cables, expects the repairs to be completed Thursday, he said, though the company has said normal service may not be resumed until Dec. 31.

A third cable, operated by India's Reliance Globalcom, was also cut on Friday. A spokesman said via e-mail that the repair ship Teliri was still en route to the site and that Reliance hopes to have the cable repaired by the end of the week, weather permitting.

Voice and IP traffic were rerouted to minimize disruptions, but some communications were still affected over the weekend. "It's not only France Telecom's customers who are having trouble, but all people in Europe who want to communicate with Asia and the Middle East," Orsoni said.

Reliance said that its IP traffic to Asia was automatically diverted via the Pacific and its customers had access to Internet services. "However, they may face some congestion and increased latency for the European sites," said the Reliance spokesman, who asked not to be named.

"The voice services of Reliance Communications to all destinations are working smoothly without any loss of connectivity," he added.

It was still unknown how the cables had been cut. France Telecom has said it suspected a ship's anchor or an undersea earthquake. The cables affected were the Sea Me We 4 and Sea Me We 3, which connect countries between Western Europe and Southeast Asia, and the Flag Europe Asia cable, which stretches from the U.K. to Japan. All were cut between 7:28 and 8:06 Greenwich Mean Time Friday morning.

Immediately following the cuts, average network response times between India and the rest of the world increased to three to four times their normal levels, while network availability dropped at one point to 72%, according to Keynote Systems, which measures Web site performance. Performance and availability to India had returned to "almost normal" after 1 p.m. GMT Friday but continued to fluctuate.

Keynote said its measurement agents in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan noticed only very brief interruptions. But the company did note a significant slowdown in Singapore and nearby Malaysia, which it said was the worst affected in the region.