Red Sea cable cuts disrupt internet across Asia and the Middle East

KATHMANDU: Internet connectivity in several countries, including India, Nepal and Pakistan, was disrupted since Saturday following outages in subsea cables running through the Red Sea, global internet monitoring group NetBlocks confirmed.

The group reported that similar disruptions were observed on major telecom networks in the United Arab Emirates, including Etisalat and Du, highlighting the widespread regional impact.

Cable Failures Near Jeddah

According to NetBlocks, failures were identified in cable systems located near Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. While the exact cause of the damage remains unclear, the outages have raised fresh concerns over the vulnerability of undersea fiber cables that carry the majority of the world’s internet traffic.

Subsea cables are the backbone of global digital infrastructure, and even minor disruptions can cause ripple effects across countries dependent on those routes for international connectivity.

Technology giant Microsoft said its cloud computing platform, Microsoft Azure, was also impacted by the fiber cuts. Users may experience increased latency and service slowdowns, particularly on traffic routed through the Middle East, the company confirmed.

“As a result of multiple undersea fiber cuts in the Red Sea, Azure users may experience higher latency on some traffic previously routed through the Middle East,” Microsoft said. “Network traffic that does not traverse the region remains unaffected. We have rerouted services through alternative network paths to minimize disruptions.”

Azure, the world’s second-largest cloud provider after Amazon Web Services (AWS), underpins a significant share of global business operations, government services, and financial transactions.

Industry analysts warn that such incidents highlight both the fragility of global internet infrastructure and the strategic importance of the Red Sea as a major digital artery. With an estimated 17% of the world’s internet traffic passing through subsea cables in the region, disruptions not only affect regional economies but also pose risks to global competitiveness, particularly for fast-growing digital hubs in South Asia and the Middle East.

India and Pakistan, home to rapidly expanding IT and outsourcing industries, are particularly vulnerable to such outages, which can delay service delivery, disrupt online commerce, and weaken confidence in digital reliability. Similarly, the UAE, a global financial and logistics hub, faces risks to its reputation as a stable base for international business if such outages persist.

While investigations are ongoing, the cause of the cable failures remains unconfirmed. Past incidents in the region have been linked to accidental damage from ships’ anchors, natural disasters, or in rare cases, deliberate sabotage. The Red Sea has emerged as a geopolitically sensitive zone where disruptions to physical and digital infrastructure carry global consequences.

For now, service providers and cloud operators are working to mitigate the fallout. But experts caution that reliance on a limited number of undersea routes leaves countries vulnerable to future shocks, underscoring the need for diversified infrastructure and greater international cooperation.