2008 Submarine Cable Disruption

International internet disruptions

• 23 Jan - FALCON cable near Bandar Abbas, Iran • 30 Jan - SEA-ME-WE 4 near Alexandria, Egypt • 30 Jan - FLAG cable near Alexandria, Egypt • 1 Feb - FALCON cable between Muscat and Dubai, UAE • 3 Feb - DOHA-HALOUL between Qatar and UAE • 4 Feb - SEA-ME-WE 4 near Penang, Malaysia

The year 2008 was, for many, a stark reminder of the fragile threads that bind our increasingly interconnected world. What began as an isolated incident quickly escalated into a series of major disruptions, collectively referred to as the 2008 submarine cable disruption. This period saw three distinct, yet interconnected, waves of severe damage to the critical undersea optical communication cables that form the backbone of global Internet connectivity.

The most prominent of these disruptions unfolded between January 23 and February 4, 2008. During this span, an alarming sequence of events led to damage involving no fewer than five high-speed Internet submarine communications cables traversing the vital aquatic arteries of the Mediterranean Sea and the broader Middle East region. The immediate fallout was a widespread and debilitating cascade of internet disruptions and significant slowdowns, impacting millions of users across the Middle East and reaching as far as India. This incident, perhaps more than any other prior, served as an uncomfortable spotlight, forcing a reevaluation of the perceived invulnerability and inherent safety of the undersea infrastructure underpinning our global digital existence. It was a moment when the unseen became painfully apparent, exposing the sheer vulnerability of a system many had simply taken for granted.

Before the year was out, the digital infrastructure would once again buckle under unforeseen pressures. Late February brought another notable outage, this time specifically targeting a crucial fiber optic connection that linked the bustling technological hub of Singapore with the sprawling metropolis of Jakarta, further illustrating the systemic fragility.

Then, as if to cap off a year of digital misfortune, December 19 saw a particularly severe confluence of events. On this date, multiple critical cables—namely, the FLAG FEA, GO-1, SEA-ME-WE 3, and SEA-ME-WE 4 systems—all suffered simultaneous cuts. It was a chaotic end to a year that had already demonstrated the precarious nature of our global digital lifeline.

Cables damaged

The seemingly robust network of undersea cables, designed to withstand the crushing pressures of the deep sea and the relentless currents, proved surprisingly susceptible to a variety of terrestrial and maritime occurrences in 2008. The following is a grim chronology of the major arteries severed during this tumultuous period.

23 January

The first tremor of what would become a sustained systemic shake-up occurred on January 23. While not immediately reported with the widespread alarm that would characterize later incidents, the FALCON cable system sustained a critical cut. The FALCON system, a crucial piece of infrastructure, is responsible for connecting numerous countries nestled within the strategic Persian Gulf region, extending its reach all the way to the subcontinent of India. Its initial disruption, though initially underplayed, was merely a prelude to the larger, more public outages that would soon follow.

30 January

Just a week later, on January 30, 2008, news agencies erupted with reports confirming widespread and severe disruptions to Internet services across the Middle East and throughout the densely populated Indian subcontinent. The cause was quickly identified: significant damage had been inflicted upon two behemoths of global data transmission, the SEA-ME-WE 4 and FLAG Telecom cables, both located within the critical chokepoint of the Mediterranean Sea. What made this incident particularly unsettling was that the damage to these two independent systems reportedly occurred separately, yet unnervingly close to each other, merely several kilometers apart, in the vicinity of the ancient Egyptian city of Alexandria.

The precise contributions of each severed cable system to the ensuing digital blackout remained somewhat muddled in the immediate aftermath. However, network outage graphs painted a clear picture of distress, displaying significant anomalies first at 0430 UTC and then again, with renewed intensity, at 0800 UTC. The official cause of the damage to both SEA-ME-WE 4 and FLAG remained officially undeclared by their respective cable operators, a silence that only fueled speculation.

A flurry of sources, both official and unofficial, quickly converged on a leading theory: these critical interruptions were most likely caused by a dragging ship anchor in the busy maritime lanes near Alexandria. This explanation, while plausible given the proximity to a major port, was met with a surprising and rather firm denial from Egyptian authorities. The Egyptian Maritime Transport Ministry, in an effort to quell the speculation, undertook a review of a full day’s worth of surveillance video footage. This comprehensive review, spanning 12 hours before and 12 hours after the service disruption, led them to a definitive conclusion: no surface craft were traced sailing through the area where the alleged wire damage occurred, thus ruling out, in their view, a shipping-related incident. Meanwhile, authorities in Kuwait, while not directly blaming seafaring vessels, offered a rather vague assessment, attributing the damage to a combination of "weather conditions and maritime traffic." The Economist, offering a different perspective entirely, ventured that a seismic event, specifically an earthquake, might have been the true culprit behind the cable faults. It's almost as if no one wanted to admit that something so vital could be brought down by sheer human carelessness.

Effects

The repercussions of these widespread cable failures were immediate and severe, rippling across continents and demonstrating just how deeply reliant modern societies had become on these unseen digital arteries. In Egypt, the heart of the initial disruption, an alarming 70 percent of Internet services were reported as compromised, effectively crippling the nation’s digital infrastructure. India, a global hub for IT services and outsourcing, fared little better, experiencing disruptions affecting a staggering 60 percent of its Internet capacity. Beyond these primary impact zones, problems proliferated across a diverse array of nations, including Afghanistan-AWCC, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Kuwait, the Maldives, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. The sheer geographical breadth of the affected regions underscored the interconnectedness of the global network and the devastating domino effect when central hubs falter.

The scale of the human impact was immense. In the UAE alone, an estimated 1.7 million Internet users found themselves grappling with the profound inconvenience and economic fallout of the disruption. Mahesh Jaishanker, an executive director for Du, a prominent telecommunications provider, offered a sobering assessment, stating that the submarine cable cuts in the FLAG Europe-Asia cable, located a mere 8.3 kilometers from Alexandria, Egypt, and the SEA-ME-WE 4 system, collectively affected at least 60 million users in India, 12 million in Pakistan, six million in Egypt, and 4.7 million in Saudi Arabia. These weren’t just numbers; they represented millions of stalled businesses, interrupted communications, and frustrated individuals. Initial reports suggested an even more dire situation for Iran, with some claiming a total loss of connectivity after a router for a university in Tehran ceased responding. However, the Iranian embassy in Abu Dhabi quickly moved to reassure the public, reporting that "everything was fine," a statement that was later corroborated by additional reports and analysis. These subsequent assessments indicated that while Iran certainly experienced some degree of disruption, it ultimately "fared much better" than many of its geographic neighbors, a curious anomaly that would later fuel various theories.

Amidst the chaos, efforts to restore connectivity were underway with a palpable sense of urgency. On February 1, 2008, VSNL, a leading communications solutions provider based in India, confirmed that it had managed to restore a significant majority of its IP connectivity into the critical MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region. This impressive feat was achieved within a mere 24 hours of the initial Egypt cable breakdown. Services were largely reinstated by ingeniously diverting traffic through alternate routes, specifically utilizing the TIC and SEA-ME-WE 3 cables, a testament to the inherent redundancy, albeit often overstretched, built into parts of the global network.

1 February

Just two days after the initial, devastating break near Alexandria, the global digital infrastructure suffered yet another blow. It was reported that the FALCON cable, already having experienced an earlier, unpublicized cut on January 23, was severed for a second time. This new incident occurred between the critical landing points of Muscat, the capital of Oman, and Dubai, a major hub in the UAE. Crucially, this was a distinct incident from the January 23 cut, affecting a different segment of the same cable system. FLAG Telecom later issued a press release, providing precise details: the "FALCON cable is reported cut at 0559 hrs GMT on 1 February 2008. Location of cut is at 56 km from Dubai, UAE on segment between UAE and Oman." Investigations into this particular incident quickly yielded a definitive, and rather mundane, culprit: the damage was unequivocally caused by an abandoned anchor, a hefty piece of maritime debris weighing between five and six tonnes. It seemed the ocean floor was littered with silent threats to our digital lives, carelessly left behind.

3 February

The digital misfortunes continued their relentless march. On February 3, 2008, Qtel, Qatar's prominent telecommunications company, announced yet another cable casualty. A vital link known as DOHA-HALOUL, which served as a crucial connection between Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, had sustained damage. This new break further exacerbated the already severely compromised communication networks across the Middle East. It was a compounding blow, marking the fourth significant cable to be damaged within a mere five-day period, pushing the region's digital resilience to its very limits. The location of this particular break was identified as being between the Qatari island of Haloul and the UAE island of Das. Unlike the previous incidents attributed to anchors, the problem with DOHA-HALOUL was said to be related to its power system, introducing a different, yet equally disruptive, mode of failure to the growing list of vulnerabilities.

4 February

As if the preceding week of digital calamity wasn't enough, the saga of severed cables continued to unfold. On February 4, 2008, the Khaleej Times, a prominent newspaper in the UAE, reported yet another instance of damage to the critical SEA-ME-WE 4 cable. What made this particular report noteworthy, and indeed rather disheartening, was that this new damage occurred at a completely different location, far from the Mediterranean, specifically near Penang, Malaysia. The precise date of this specific damage was not immediately disclosed, but its emergence added another layer of complexity and geographical spread to an already intricate and widespread pattern of disruption. It seemed the vulnerabilities of the global network were not confined to a single choke point but were, in fact, distributed across vast oceanic distances.

19 December

As 2008 drew to a close, a final, dramatic chapter in the year of cable disruptions unfolded. On December 19, France Telecom issued a press release that painted a grim picture: multiple critical cables, including the FLAG Telecom, SEA-ME-WE 4, and SEA-ME-WE 3 systems, had all been simultaneously severed. These vital arteries, linking the bustling port of Alexandria, Egypt, with the European shores of Sicily and the island nation of Malta, were down. The immediate consequence was a substantial and crippling slowdown in communication traffic across the region, with Egypt bearing a particularly heavy burden, experiencing an overall 80% reduction in its total Internet capacity.

France Telecom, in its assessment, anticipated that the SEA-ME-WE 4 cable would be repaired first, followed by SEA-ME-WE 3, and then FLAG, with the hopeful projection that all repairs would be concluded by December 31. However, the immediate impact was profound: an estimated 75% of all communication traffic between the Middle East and Asia and the rest of the world was disrupted. Major telecommunications companies, veritable titans of industry such as Vodafone, Verizon Communications, Portugal Telecom, GO, and France Telecom itself, all reported significant disruptions within their extensive systems. This forced them into a frantic scramble to reroute critical communications through alternative, often less efficient, means. Even global giants like AT&T received reports of service disruption, underscoring the cascading nature of the crisis.

The rerouting, while a necessary measure to restore some semblance of connectivity, inevitably led to substantial slowdowns in many affected areas. Jonathan Wright, a director at Interoute, aptly summarized the situation: "You can reroute the data through other cables, but that increases traffic and can potentially create bottlenecks, so Internet connections may slow down and some phone calls could get disrupted." It was a stark illustration of the limits of redundancy when faced with such widespread simultaneous failure. Adding to the regional woes, the GO-1 cable, a critical link connecting Malta and Sicily, also suffered a cut, further isolating the island nation and highlighting the pervasive nature of the damage.

Cause of cable breaks

The rash of submarine cable breaks in 2008 ignited a fierce debate and a flurry of investigations into their underlying causes. While the initial explanations often veered into the realm of the unknown or the conspiratorial, the truth, as it often does, proved to be far more mundane, yet no less frustrating.

Anchors

Initially, many officials were quick to attribute these disruptions to unfortunate accidents involving ships' anchors. It's a plausible theory, especially in busy shipping lanes. However, this explanation was met with a rather swift and official denial from Egyptian authorities following their review of surveillance footage of the affected area near Alexandria. They found no ships in the vicinity at the time of the initial damage, a finding that, for a brief period, cast doubt on the anchor theory for the January 30 breaks.

Yet, the plot thickened, or rather, solidified, with concrete evidence. FLAG Telecom later confirmed that the cut to the FALCON cable between the United Arab Emirates and Oman was indeed caused by an abandoned anchor, a rather substantial piece of maritime debris weighing between five and six tons. This discovery lent significant credence to the general idea that human activity, even unintentional, posed a very real threat to these vital undersea arteries.

Further corroboration arrived in mid-April when authorities took decisive action: two ships were impounded in connection with the FLAG Telecom outages near Dubai. These vessels were charged with the rather specific offense of improperly dropping anchor in the restricted area where the cuts occurred. It was a masterclass in denial, followed by an inevitable, messy confession by proxy. The December 19 breaks, too, were generally reported to have been caused either by severe weather conditions or, far more likely given the established pattern, by a ship's anchor. The bad weather was almost certainly a convenient smokescreen for what was, in all probability, another instance of human negligence playing havoc with global communications.

Common occurrence

Despite the widespread alarm and the dramatic headlines, industry experts offered a more sober, if somewhat unsettling, perspective: submarine cable cuts are, in fact, a remarkably common occurrence. Stephen Beckert, a senior analyst at TeleGeography, articulated this view, stating that the events of 2008 were "far less exceptional than they seem because cable cuts happen all the time." He argued, with the weary tone of someone who has seen it all before, that "only the first two cuts had any serious impact on the Internet," and it was this initial, significant disruption that unfortunately drew public attention to subsequent cable cuts that, under normal circumstances, would scarcely have warranted a mention beyond specialist circles.

According to Beckert, on average, a cable cut occurs "once every three days." This isn't a glitch; it's practically a feature of our undersea infrastructure. He further highlighted the existence of a specialized fleet: 25 large ships, whose sole purpose is to do nothing but tirelessly fix cable cuts and bends. The vast majority of these incidents, he noted, are typically the result of cables rubbing against abrasive rocks on the sea floor, a slow, geological form of erosion that eventually severs the delicate fibers.

Global Marine Systems, another authority in the field, echoed this sentiment, stating that "Undersea cable damage is hardly rare—indeed, more than 50 repair operations were mounted in the Atlantic alone last year." This constant state of low-level damage rarely makes headlines in regions with robust, redundant networks. When a cable crossing the Atlantic is severed, for instance, it typically has "no significant effect" on overall connectivity due to the sheer number of alternate cables available to reroute traffic. The problem, then, was not the rarity of the cuts themselves, but their concentration in a less redundant region. Only a handful of Internet cables serve the Middle East, meaning that when these few critical links were damaged, the disruptions became acutely noticeable, exposing a systemic weakness rather than an isolated anomaly. It's not that the world suddenly became more prone to cable breaks; it's that the Middle East's digital infrastructure had fewer backups, making every break a crisis.

Conspiracy theories

In the absence of immediate, clear, and universally accepted explanations, the void was, as ever, swiftly filled by a proliferation of conspiracy theories. The fact that Israel and Iraq appeared to be largely unaffected by the initial communications blackout served as immediate fuel for such speculation, prompting questions about selective targeting or hidden agendas. Because, of course, if something goes wrong, someone must be behind it, preferably someone with a shadowy agenda.

By February 6, a particularly intricate theory began to gain traction, appearing notably in an opinion piece on Dow Jones Marketwatch. This theory posited that the disruption in these critical cables was directly related to an escalating economic confrontation between the United States and Iran. The article pointed out a suspicious temporal alignment: the disruption and damage to these cables notably preceded the intended launch of the Iranian oil bourse on Kish Island, an event scheduled to occur between February 1 and 11. This bourse was designed to broker sales of oil denominated in euros, a concept sometimes referred to as "petroeuros." This move had been widely interpreted by some analysts as a deliberate attempt by Iran to inflict additional damage to the value of the dollar by reducing the global volume of oil traded in "petrodollars." Given the potentially significant economic damage that euro-denominated oil sales could inflict, especially in the context of ongoing dollar inflation, and considering the seemingly large number of cables that appeared to have been disrupted or damaged, Marketwatch's John Dvorak wrote that the U.S. could, and likely would, be blamed for the disruptions.

According to this elaborate sabotage theory, the strategically damaged cables and the ensuing widespread Internet disruptions were intended to destroy confidence in the nascent Iranian Oil Bourse's ability to execute trades reliably. The ultimate goal, therefore, was to thwart the establishment of a viable alternative to dollar-denominated oil sales, thereby protecting the petrodollar system. However, the irony, which often escapes the architects of such theories, was that Iran itself, the supposed target, suffered remarkably little from the outages. The primary impact, as detailed earlier, disproportionately affected America's allies in the region, a rather inconvenient truth for the proponents of this particular narrative. Separately, ever-present bloggers also suggested that the cable disruptions were merely a sophisticated cover operation for the NSA to install clandestine taps on the lines, facilitating widespread eavesdropping. Because why simply break a cable when you can also listen in? A classic.

Adding a layer of official, yet ultimately erroneous, conjecture, on Monday, February 18, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), a UN agency, publicly stated that the damage could have been an act of sabotage. Sami al-Murshed, the UN agency's head of development, was quoted as saying, "We do not want to preempt the results of ongoing investigations, but we do not rule out that a deliberate act of sabotage caused the damage to the undersea cables over two weeks ago." This official endorsement of a sabotage theory, however, was subsequently shown to be false. The prosaic truth emerged on April 18: two ships, caught in a storm, had inadvertently parked in a restricted area and, in their unwitting carelessness, cut the cables with their anchors. One sailor from each vessel was detained, along with both vessels themselves, until restitution for the damaged cables was secured. It was a definitive, if anticlimactic, end to the more sensational theories, a reminder that human error and the indifferent forces of nature often conspire to cause more disruption than any grand, shadowy plot.