Phone firms rush to mend undersea cable

Phone firms rush to mend undersea cable

SINGAPORE (Reuters): Telephone companies from Singapore and
Indonesia scrambled on Tuesday to repair a break in an undersea
telecommunications cable that led to major Internet traffic jams
for millions of users across the globe.

Singapore Telecommunications Ltd said it had dispatched a
cable ship to repair the SEA-ME-WE 3 cable, which was cut between
Singapore and Jakarta.

The 38,000 km (23,600 miles) cable links Australia, Asia and
Europe and is one of the world's busiest Internet cables.

The cause of the damage was unknown, but possibilities include
a ship's anchor or earthquake.

"We still don't know what caused the cut and it's part of the
international cable...through 33 countries," said a spokesman for
Telstra Corp Ltd, Australia's biggest Internet provider, which
lost 65 percent of its international capacity on Monday.

"We have been told that it has impacted Indonesia, Japan, Hong
Kong, the UK and United States at least and possibly other
countries as well," he added.

SingTel, which is coordinating repair efforts with Indonesian
international telecommunications operator Indosat, said its own
traffic to Australia had not been disrupted.

"We've re-routed traffic since the damage occurred," a
spokesman for the Singaporean company said.

Telstra, with more than 650,000 customers, relies on the cable
for around 60 percent of its traffic.

It posted a notice on its website warning customers of long
delays due to the disruption to its "Australian backbone".

Telstra said its Big Pond network was virtually closed down
overnight, but had since been able to re-route traffic and was
now operating at 75 percent capacity.

Telstra said delays were to be expected during peak traffic
times on international connections from Australia.

It said it would take a number of days to repair the cable.

SingTel said the cable is owned by a consortium of more than
40 parties, including Telstra, SingTel, Indosat, Hong Kong
Telecom, British Telecommunications Plc and France Telecom among
others.