Unkind cuts

Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action. So what about four and five times? Naturally, cyberspace last week was sucked in by happenings under the sea, and surfaced with conspiracy theories. Four undersea cable cuts and one power outage in less than a week disrupted internet traffic badly "" mostly in India and West Asia, particularly Iran. It was but natural that these incidents, which took place in succession in less than a week's time, would arouse the suspicion that Iran was being targeted, by either the US or Israel "" for both of whom the present Iranian administration is like a red rag. Besides, bloggers noted that Iran was about to launch the Iranian Oil Bourse "" a marketplace for oil, gas, and various petrochemicals "" later in the month. The bourse, it has already been announced, will trade exclusively in currencies other than US dollars, in a clear challenge to the greenback's hegemony.

Earlier, it was Saddam Hussein who had decided to stop using the US dollar for trading in oil. Iran also announced recently that it had acquired the ability to launch its own rocket and that it would soon send its own satellites into orbit. The facts, as they slowly unfold, reveal that Iran was not entirely cut off by the cable disconnections. But suspicions will not be banished till the affected telecom companies surface with the actual reasons for the damage. After all, the Egyptian ministry of communication has said there were no ships present in the area at the time the cables were cut, discrediting the theory of anchors having cut the cables, and adding to the confusion.

It is not just West Asia that suffered. In fact, Indian business process outsourcing (BPO) firms continue to bear the brunt, primarily with voice traffic. With outsourced work being performed in India and elsewhere in the region, companies in the US and Europe too were affected. Redundant connections did help, at least in the case of the large BPOs, to ensure a steady flow of bandwidth. Smaller firms are still recovering from the hit.

Much of the angst arose from the fact that both Flag and Falcon, both owned by Reliance Communications (RCom), as well as the Se-Me-We-4 cable used by Bharti and VSNL were damaged. Bharti was able minimise the damage by re-routing traffic through the i2i cable, and VSNL used the Tata Indicom and Se-Me-We-3 cables to restore bandwidth. RCom was the worst affected. It alleged that Bharti and VSNL failed to provide it with additional capacity. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) had to step in and ask the parties to shake hands and work together till the cables are repaired "" after which the Trai will work out a long-term solution.

The addressable global BPO market is around $150 billion, of which India has a share of almost 10 per cent. Such incidents will, therefore, serve to weaken its position in a globalised economy if the issues are not addressed quickly. Meanwhile, the incidents show that the internet can indeed be held hostage to real-world events, and that undersea cable damage is common. Over 50 repair operations were mounted in the Atlantic alone last year, according to the marine cable repair company Global Marine Systems. The fibre path across the Mediterranean has become a 'choke point', as described by Telegeography Research (TR) analysts, since it had very little traffic till recently and therefore capacity had not been built up. Many new cables are now planned for the region; TR notes that at least four new fibre lines planned for the Europe-Egypt route over the next few years, including those by Flag, Telecom Egypt, Orascom (also Egypt), and a fourth funded by the India-Middle East-Western Europe consortium of companies. But even these will use roughly the same route, the research firm argues, which leaves the Mediterranean zone vulnerable to attacks of the kind seen last week.

Cyberwars, anyone?