Trai works on faster cable restorations

In the wake of recent submarine cable cuts that disrupted Internet and telephony services across the world, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) is looking at putting in place a mechanism to ensure immediate restoration of lines in case of such incidents in the future.

Separately, TeleGeography (an international research website) has stated around 60 million users in India were affected by the damage to the four submarine cables in the Mediterranean Sea.

Trai is planning to convene a meeting of the industry to put in place a crisis observance framework to be included in international long distance (ILD) and national long distance (NLD) licence conditions.

It is also mulling a change in the reference interconnect order, which regulates cable landing stations (CLSs) and interconnect agreements between operators, sources close to the development say. Trai plans to call a meeting of the operators, the industry and consumer associations within a fortnight.

One of the major issues before it is to ensure immediate restoration of traffic to protect the interests of consumers and the outsourcing industry.

Industry analysts blamed lack of coordination among international long-distance operators (ILDOs) for the recent imbroglio.

Restoration of Internet traffic is difficult at the moment as the CLS operators and the submarine cable operators do not have "definite agreements" in place.

During similar crises earlier, the CLS operators and the cable operators had locked horns, forcing the regulator to intervene to restore normalcy.

Reliance Communications-owned Flag and Falcon and consortium cable SEA-ME-WE-4 and another unnamed cable were disrupted during the last four days.

International websites quoting TeleGeography stated that an estimated 1.7 million internet users in the UAE, 12 million in Pakistan, 6 million in Egypt and 4.7 million in Saudi Arabia were affected.

The main effect was on internet traffic, though voice calls, corporate data and video traffic were also affected.