Submarine cable damage brings internet pain to Asia, Africa

Internet users across Asia appear to be suffering from degraded performance after a major submarine cable was severed.

Pakistan's telecoms authority flagged the cable cut.

Internet-watching outfit Netblocks also spotted something amiss in Pakistan, other Asian nations, and parts of Africa.

SEA-ME-WE-5 runs from France to Singapore with landings in Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Djibouti, Oman, United Arab Emirates, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Malaysia, and Indonesia along the way.

The cable is 20,000km in length and can carry 12.2Tb per fibre pair – of which there are four from Egypt to France and three for the rest of the span.

The Register has asked SEA-ME-WE-5's operator to confirm and detail the outage, not least because the Pakistan Telecoms Authority's tweet contains an error: while the city of Zafrana is a major cable landing location on the Red Sea, the mention of "Abu Talab" appears to be a typo. Egypt houses no city of that name, but is home to Abu Talat – a Mediterranean port that is also a major comms hub.