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Microsoft Azure: "Multiple international subsea cables were cut in the Red Sea"
- djfobbz 1y agoMultiple subsea fiber cuts in the Red Sea impacting global communications Impact Summary Starting at 05:45 UTC on 06 September 2025, traffic traversing through the Middle East originating and/or terminating in Asia or Europe regions may experience increased latency due to multiple undersea fiber cuts in the Red Sea. The disruption has required rerouting through alternate paths which may lead to higher-than-normal latencies. This advisory is intended to raise awareness ahead of increased demand as the regions enter the start of its work week. Current Status Multiple international subsea cables were cut in the Red Sea. Our engineering teams are actively managing the interruption via diverse capacity and traffic rerouting, while also discussing alternate capacity options and providers in the region. Undersea fiber cuts can take time to repair, as such we will continuously monitor, rebalance, and optimize routing to reduce customer impact in the meantime. We’ll continue to provide daily updates, or sooner if conditions change. This message was last updated at 19:30 UTC on 06 September 2025
- cr125rider 1y agoThe smart folks who keep these things running, despite failures like this, are incredible. Hats off to you all, good luck in the coming weeks as you have to deal with this.
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- specproc 1y ago[flagged]
- crimsonnoodle58 1y agoAn act of terrorism is never smart or heroic.
- specproc 1y ago[flagged]
- sporkxrocket 1y ago[flagged]
- js212 1y agoFree the hostages then we can talk
- sporkxrocket 1y agoYeah all of the Palestinians that Israel has been holding hostage since well before Oct 7th need to be freed.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
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- movedx 1y agoBGP <3
- marcosdumay 1y agoYes, but it's damn time people start upgrading to BGP ==3.
- matt-p 1y agoMost likely not. Almost certainly bfd or ldp/mpls
- ajsnigrutin 1y agohttps://www.bbc.com/future/article/20241014-the-deep-sea-emergency-service-that-keeps-the-internet-running https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20241014-the-deep-sea-eme... An article about people who fix this Also, the teams are quite busy: > "There are 150 to 200 instances of damage to the global network each year. So if we look at that against 1.4 million km, that's not very many, and for the most part, when this damage happens, it can be repaired relatively quickly." ... > If a fault is found, a repair ship is dispatched. "All these vessels are strategically placed around the world to be 10-12 days from base to port," ... > To repair the damage, the ship deploys a grapnel, or grappling hook, to lift and snip the cable, pulling one loose end up to the surface and reeling it in across the bow with large, motorised drums. The damaged section is then winched into an internal room and analysed for a fault, repaired, tested by sending a signal back to land from the boat, sealed and then attached to a buoy while the process is repeated on the other end of the cable.
- adolph 1y agoI wonder how much slack is left in the cable over its run in order to facilitate bringing it up for repair.
- soupfordummies 1y agoNow that’s what i call a service loop!
- throwup238 1y agoAt first it’s an average of 1% slack across the entire run but up to 5% in rough terrain. They don’t use slack though for repairs, they lay down new cable between the bights that adds up to several miles to the length.
- trelane 1y ago> 1.4 million km Strange way of writing 1.4gm.
- trueismywork 1y ago
- typpilol 1y agoWere they cut on purpose or accident?
- viraptor 1y agoIt's only been a few hours. I doubt anyone knows.
- betaby 1y agoCables in Red Sea got cut frequently. All the time it's the same story - anchor dropped where it should not. Similar stories happen near Singapore.
- mandeepj 1y ago> Cables in Red Sea got cut frequently On land, we’ve call before you dig. I wish they could do something like call before you drop (anchor) training or just get the word out.
- jvilalta 1y agoThey are usually marked on nautical charts.
- simplesimon890 1y agoSome fishermen won't care as there are less ships where the cables are, they'll fish there. There are a lot of cables and fishing vessels in the Irish Sea.
- jmkni 1y agoCouldn't that be a security concern?
- nashashmi 1y agoSecurity concern is the more unlikely scenario of accidental cutting. There is enough redundancy that it is very difficult to cut them all for a single ship and if there are hypothetically multiple ships all cutting at the same time, then it is likely to be traceable. The cost of cutting these cables by sending someone out there is significant enough in addition to how unlikely they are to succeed.
- upghost 1y agoCan they splice these? Surely the don't have to run a whole new cable?
- Waterluvian 1y agoI think they raise the cable to the surface, splice it and sink it again.
- bigiain 1y agoI've read (or perhaps watched on YouTube) the same thing. Finding both ends of the cable to grab abd raise it took longer than the raise/splice operation. I suspect a sufficiently malicious attacker could intentionally cut the cable twice, so when the repair crew drag up one end of the cut they know about, the section between the cuts drags its other end away from it's cut-point making the second repair significantly more difficult...
- pixl97 1y agoCutting twice wouldn't be an issue, they can send a signal from both ends to get a reflection of how much of the cable is dead.
- staplung 1y agoIn most cases they can easily figure out approximately where the break is on the line by simply measuring the resistance in the cable's conductors (they have more than one but the big one caries a 10,000V feed to power the repeaters). A double cut would probably show up as resistances that didn't sum to the proper total.
- matt-p 1y agoYou can only practically do that optically e.g through OTDR. You can't TDR steel conductors exposed to the ocean 500KM away with a ohm meter and a Murray loop, to even have a chance you need to put low voltage on it and it's not even close to as accurate.
- MengerSponge 1y agoEvery subsea cable service interruption story is an excuse to share one of my favorite pieces of long-form technical history: Neal Stephenson's Mother Earth Mother Board: https://www.wired.com/1996/12/ffglass/ https://www.wired.com/1996/12/ffglass/ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20497098 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20497098
- staplung 1y agoThe Wired article is paywalled now unfortunately. Here's an archived version: https://web.archive.org/web/20210107003422/https://www.wired.com/1996/12/ffglass/ https://web.archive.org/web/20210107003422/https://www.wired... The Verge also has a great article which is more recent and more specifically about a repair ship: https://web.archive.org/web/20240422050805/https://www.theverge.com/c/24070570/internet-cables-undersea-deep-repair-ships https://web.archive.org/web/20240422050805/https://www.theve...
- pagansRpedos 1y ago[flagged]