More info about the internet submarine cable cut affecting the UAE

Here's some extra information from yesterday's story about the UAE's internet outage that has been on a submarine cable cut:

The Sea-ME-We-4 submarine cable had an breakdown between Alexandria and Marseilles, slowing the nation's internet access to a crawl, according to Etisalat, the UAE's largest telecommunications operator.

that the internet connection was cut Wednesday afternoon due to a "

" approximately 1,886 kilometers from Alexandria towards Palermo, Italy.

A shunt fault occurs when the submarine cable insulation becomes damaged and a short circuit occurs when it comes into contact with water.

The Sea-ME-We-4 connection provides the UAE with access to approximately 1,280 gigabytes per second of internet data and is approximately 18,800 kilometres long.

Of the seven cables that connect the UAE to the internet, the Sea-ME-We-4 is the primary backbone to web and contributes about 60 per cent of the country's total online access,  according to data from telecoms consultancy TeleGeography.

The cable also provide main internet network hubs in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, India and Pakistan with web access but it is unclear if services in those countries are also affected by the cut.

This is the fourth time the Sea-ME-We-4 cable has been severed since 2004. In 2008, the cable was severed in January and December slowing internet traffic in the region to a crawl.

A dragged anchor was blamed for the initial incident in 2008 but it is unknown why it happened a second time.

To alleviate the impact of a disrupted internet cable in the UAE and provide better resiliency, Etisalat and du have both invested in the development of new fibre-optic connections. There is a total of seven new submarine cables in development in the region, according to TeleGeography.

Etisalat is a partner in a US$400 million (Dh1.469 billion) submarine cable network consortium that will link India to the Middle East and Africa. Du has contributed $50m to the build of a 15,000 km cable linking the UK to India which is worth a reported $700m.