Services not affected due to submarine cable cuts: Omantel

Published: 07:09 AM,Sep 09,2025 | EDITED : 11:09 AM,Sep 09,2025

Oman Telecommunications Company (Omantel) reported to the MSX on Monday that it has taken measures to mitigate the impact of the disruption due to cuts in submarine cable systems passing through the Bab Al Mandab Strait (Red Sea), disrupting the internet service by routing the traffic to other redundant routes.

Omantel said a number of reports have indicated cuts in a number of submarine cable systems passing through the Bab Al Mandab Strait, which in turn affected internet service.

Omantel services continue unaffected due to the reported cut at this junction. Therefore, it is not expected that the incident will have a material impact on the internet service.

Undersea cable damages in the Red Sea disrupted internet access on Sunday in parts of Asia and the Middle East, experts said, though it wasn't immediately clear what caused the incident.

Microsoft, in a statement, said that starting at 05:45 UTC on September 6, 2025, traffic traversing through the Middle East originating and/or terminating in Asia or Europe regions may experience increased latency due to multiple underwater fiber cuts in the Red Sea.

The disruption has required rerouting through alternate paths, which may lead to higher-than-normal latencies.

NetBlocks, which monitors internet access, said 'a series of subsea cable outages in the Red Sea has degraded internet connectivity in multiple countries,' which it said included India and Pakistan. It blamed 'failures affecting the SMW4 and IMEWE cable systems near Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.'

Similar internet disruptions have been observed on Etilasat and Du networks in the United Arab Emirates, resulting in slow speeds and intermittent access as engineers work to resolve the issue impacting multiple countries, NetBlocks said.

Multiple international subsea cables were cut in the Red Sea. Our engineering teams are actively managing the interruption via diverse capacity and traffic rerouting, while also discussing alternate capacity options and providers in the region, Microsoft said.Undersea fiber cuts can take time to repair; as such, we will continuously monitor, rebalance, and optimize routing to reduce customer impact in the meantime. We'll continue to provide daily updates, or sooner if conditions change, it added.