IT : ISPs reroute ,seek DoT's intervention

Problem:
A SHIP'S anchor severed two undersea cables in the Mediterranean region near Egypt, disrupting internet access for Tens of millions of internet users across the Middle East and Asia on 30th jan.

Effect:Indian Service Providers (ISPs) such as Bharti, Tata owned-VSNL and Reliance Comunications, who offer international connectivity through global undersea links, have engaged in large scale re-routing of voice and data-traffic, in addition to swinging to the backup mode following the disruption in international connectivity due to breakdown of two undersea cables .

The country’s other international bandwidth provider, BSNL, however, said that it services were unaffected as all its traffic is routed via Sri Lanka.

Solution:
Short-term:
Bharti had re-routed its network through i2i while the Tatas are diverting a significant chink of their traffic through the SMW-3 cable (which connects Asia to Europe) and the Tata Indicom cable.Reliance, on the other hand, has already started restoring its services by routing its traffic on other partner networks.

Long Term:
DoT to act whereby it mandates that Bharti, VSNL and Reliance have backup redundancy plans in place.

Past History:
in 2006, an earthquake in Taiwan had knocked out internet links to India for 20-25 minutes and affected Reliance Communications’ FLAG and VSNL’s SEA-ME-WE-3 under-sea cable systems.