For billions of people across Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, the expectation of a seamless, always-on internet connection has become as ingrained as the need for running water or electricity. Yet a sudden and dramatic disruption in early September 2025 has exposed just how fragile the infrastructure underpinning the world’s digital connectivity really is. According to the Associated Press, a commercial ship allegedly dragged its anchor off the coast of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, in the Red Sea, severing at least four major undersea internet cables. The result: widespread outages and slowed connections across India, Pakistan, and numerous Middle Eastern and African countries.
The incident, which affected the South East Asia–Middle East–Western Europe 4, India-Middle East-Western Europe, FALCON GCX, and Europe India Gateway cables, has sent shockwaves through the global internet community. These cables, running through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, are part of a network of about 15 subsea lines that collectively carry an astonishing 99% of the world’s internet traffic, as reported by Khaleej Times and technology analysts cited by the AP.
Doug Madory, director of internet analysis at Kentik, told AP, “We had cuts in the Red Sea last year, and now we’re in the same boat again, so to speak.” His words ring true for millions of users now grappling with disrupted services, as providers scramble to reroute traffic through the remaining intact cables. The result? Increased latency, reliability issues, and a stark reminder that the digital world is built atop a surprisingly vulnerable physical foundation.
How did this happen? According to John Wrottesley of the International Cable Protection Committee, commercial shipping activity is the “probable cause of damage.” The Red Sea is a notoriously busy waterway, with ships often forced to wait their turn to pass through the Suez Canal. “They have to drop an anchor while they’re waiting, and when you have a lot of ships dropping a lot of anchors in shallow water, it’s just a recipe for disaster,” Madory explained. In fact, dragged anchors are responsible for around 30% of annual cable incidents worldwide, accounting for approximately 60 faults each year.
But the challenges don’t end with identifying the cause. Repairing these vital cables is a Herculean task. Yasser Saied, Consulting Systems Engineer at cybersecurity firm Palo Alto, painted a sobering picture for Khaleej Times: “Worldwide, there are only three or four companies that can fix such a cable.” This scarcity of specialized repair teams means that when multiple disruptions occur—like this time—delays are inevitable.
What makes the job so tough? Saied elaborated, “To fix such a cable, you need very high technology as they are buried deep under the ocean. You need special fibre divers who can go to the depths of the ocean, locate the exact cut and fix it. So it is not an easy operation and could take months.” The cables in question lie deep beneath the ocean floor, and accessing them requires both advanced technology and highly trained personnel—resources that are in short supply globally.
There’s also the matter of location. According to reports from AP and Khaleej Times, the cable cuts occurred off the coast of Yemen, an area complicated by ongoing conflict involving the Houthis. This instability makes access to the affected sites especially difficult. As Madory noted, “Cable cuts are often repaired quickly, but this case is more complicated because of its location off the coast of Yemen, where conflict involving the Houthis slows repair efforts.”
It’s not just ships and conflict that threaten these cables. Swapnendu M., Solutions Architect at Cisco, pointed out to Khaleej Times that natural disasters and, on rare occasions, malicious activity can also cause significant damage. Furthermore, fiber optic cables are susceptible to natural degradation over time, with incidents occurring every five to ten years due to wear and tear. With around 200 subsea cable incidents reported globally each year, this is hardly a rare event.
The scale of this outage has reignited debate about the reliability of subsea cables and the need for alternatives. Satellite internet services, such as Starlink, have been touted as a potential solution. Starlink, backed by SpaceX, now boasts more than six million subscribers worldwide, according to a recent report by equity research firm MoffettNathanson. In regions like sub-Saharan Africa, Starlink has become a crucial backup when terrestrial connectivity fails—Ukraine, for instance, has relied on it to maintain communications amid Russian attacks on infrastructure.
But satellite internet is no panacea. The technology remains expensive, with hardware kits costing several hundred dollars and monthly fees that far exceed many local providers’ rates. This puts it out of reach for mass adoption in lower-income regions most affected by cable outages. And there’s another catch: satellites simply can’t match the data capacity of fiber optic cables. “Starlink, or any satellite service, is just not going to be able to re-create the capacity that you get on a fiber optic cable,” Madory told AP. Subsea cables can carry up to three petabits of data per second, while satellites currently top out at around 150 terabits per second.
That gap may narrow in the coming years. Planned satellite launches could boost capacity to 800 terabits per second by 2028, but for now, subsea cables remain the backbone of the global internet. As Swapnendu M. observed, rerouting traffic during outages causes “latency and reliability issues,” underscoring the limitations of current alternatives.
For now, the world waits. Experts estimate that repairs to the severed Red Sea cables could take several weeks—or even months—given the technical, logistical, and geopolitical hurdles. In the meantime, businesses, governments, and ordinary internet users across three continents are left to contend with sluggish connections and the unsettling realization that the digital age’s most essential infrastructure is, quite literally, hanging by a thread.
The Red Sea cable crisis has laid bare the vulnerabilities of the invisible network that keeps the world connected. As the repair ships prepare for their delicate mission, the debate over how best to safeguard global connectivity is sure to intensify. For now, the cables—and the people who rely on them—remain at the mercy of the sea, the ships that cross it, and the few who possess the skills to mend what’s broken.
