Finally, Progress With Red Sea Cable Repairs
By TechCentral
July 17, 2024
Repairs have finally commenced on three subsea telecommunications cables that were damaged in the Red Sea in February, even as Houthi militants escalate their attacks on ships in the area.
The AAE-1 cable, a 25 000km fibre-optic link between Asia and Europe, was repaired by a ship owned by E-Marine, a subsidiary of Abu Dhabi-based Emirates Telecommunications Group. The cable came online this week, a Yemeni government official said. The same ship, Niwa, remains in Yemeni waters to repair the remaining two cables, Seacom and EIG.
The cables, among more than a dozen that run through the Red Sea, were severed by the anchor of a cargo ship sunk by Iran-backed Houthi militants in late February.
Repairs to the cables have depended on gaining access to infrastructure in Yemen’s waters, a task complicated by the country’s split government and the fact the Red Sea is a conflict zone. It has taken months of negotiations involving the cable operators and the two factions that control Yemen — the internationally recognised government in the south and the Houthi-backed government in Sanaa — to arrange for the repair mission.
“These are some of the biggest data highways connecting Europe, Middle East, India and Asia,” said Roderick Beck, a consultant who sources network capacity on subsea cables for telecoms clients. “The downtime has forced carriers to completely reroute traffic by building new digital highways stitched together using new cables at considerable expense and working around the clock.”
Although the telecoms data that passes along the damaged cables was rerouted, the incident highlighted the vulnerability of critical subsea infrastructure and the challenges of making repairs in the Red Sea, one of the world’s most important shipping lanes and a conflict zone since late 2023.
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It’s not clear how the AAE-1 cable consortium was able to obtain a permit. A government representative declined to comment further. Representatives for the consortium did not respond to requests for comment. Representatives for Seacom and EIG did not respond to requests for comment.
