Indian internet disruption hits UK businesses

Internet services between India and Europe have been disrupted after a ship accidentally severed two undersea cables in the Mediterranean.

One UK software company told Computer Weekly that it had taken four hours to send a 3K file to its offices in India.

Services went down on Wednesday at 2.30pm Indian local time when the cables were accidentally cut. Repairs could take up to 15 days according to RS Perhar, secretary of the ISP Association of India.

"Two fibre connections carrying internet traffic along the Western route towards Europe have been cut. Internet traffic is being rerouted along other fibre connections, but bandwidth will be throttled along these routes to cope with the transfer of traffic," he said.

Perhar added that the main ISPs serving business in India - a popular IT outsourcing location - usually relied on more than one line connection, but in this case both the main and backup lines were near each other.