Hidden highway of internet: How the Red Sea cable cut disrupted internet across India, Pakistan and Middle East | Explained

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Millions of people across India, Pakistan and parts of the Middle East have been facing slow or patchy internet after two undersea cables in the Red Sea were damaged. In the UAE, networks such as Etisalat and Du also slowed down. The disruption is a reminder that the global internet still depends on a handful of fibre-optic cables lying quietly on the ocean floor.

The Red Sea is one of the busiest corridors for this hidden infrastructure. According to research firm TeleGeography, more than 90 per cent of Europe-Asia internet capacity travels through these cables. More than half of the inter-regional bandwidth for many countries is routed to Europe through this stretch of water. When a break happens here, the effects ripple across continents.

A conflict zone under the sea

The outage comes at a tense time. Yemen’s Houthi rebels have attacked more than 100 ships in the Red Sea since late 2023, sinking four and killing at least eight sailors. The US and its allies have retaliated while Israel continues operations against Hamas. Yemen’s exiled government has accused the Houthis of targeting undersea cables. The group denies this, but its al-Masirah TV channel has acknowledged the cuts without claiming responsibility.

The damage affected two key systems. SMW4 (South East Asia-Middle East-Western Europe 4) is operated by Tata Communications. IMEWE (India-Middle East-Western Europe) is run by a consortium led by Alcatel-Lucent. Pakistan’s telecom authorities confirmed the cuts, but no one knows the exact cause. Subsea cables can be hit by ship anchors or deliberately sabotaged. Repairs take weeks because special ships must locate and fix the fault.

Who owns and lays the cables

Despite their importance, governments rarely build these cables themselves. Private companies and international consortiums plan, finance and maintain them. They use specialist ships to lay thousands of kilometres of fibre-optic cable on the seabed, avoiding deep trenches and other hazards.

In India, undersea cables carry more than 95 per cent of the country’s international data. Big players include Tata Communications, Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel, Sify Technologies and BSNL. Globally, SubCom, Alcatel Submarine Networks and TE SubCom design and install many of the systems.

India has around 17 international cables landing at 14 stations in cities such as Mumbai, Chennai, Cochin, Tuticorin and Trivandrum. Tata Communications owns five landing stations, while Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel, Sify, BSNL, Vodafone and new entrants like Lightstorm and IOX operate others. Each station connects multiple cables that link India to Europe, the Middle East, Southeast Asia and Africa.

Why India is expanding its network

To make the internet faster and more resilient, India is adding new systems such as the India-Asia-Express (IAX), the India-Europe-Express (IEX) and 2Africa Pearls. Meta’s Project Waterworth will be the longest undersea cable in the world and will link India to the United States, South Africa and Brazil.

These investments are designed to spread risk, increase capacity and support technologies like cloud computing, 5G and artificial intelligence. They also help ensure that a single break, like the recent Red Sea cut, does not slow down services for millions of people.

The hidden lifelines of the internet

Undersea cables form the backbone of the internet alongside satellites and land cables. Most providers have multiple routes and can reroute traffic if one system fails, but users may still experience slow speeds when that happens.

The Red Sea outage is a reminder that much of our digital life depends on a few strands of glass running under the ocean. Laying and protecting these cables is complex, expensive and vital for countries like India whose economies are becoming more digital every day.