Paris: Internet and telephone traffic between the Middle East and Europe will continue to be disrupted into January after a repaired undersea cable in the Mediterranean Sea suffered further damage, France Telecom SA said.
The South East Asia-Middle East-Western Europe 4 cable, also known as Sea-Me-We 4 or SMW4, between Italy and Egypt was damaged by an underwater earthquake on December 26, a day after traffic had been restored following an earlier breakage, said Louis-Michel Aymard, a spokesman for Paris-based France Telecom.
Sea-Me-We 4 connects 12 countries: Pakistan, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Italy and France.
The three cables suffered their initial outage on December 19. Full connectivity, previously anticipated by the end of the year, won't be restored until January 4, he said.
Bloomberg
Published: December 30, 2008, 22:52
