Submarine Cables

Internet Slowdown in Asia: The Vulnerability of Submarine Cables

On 9th September 2025, a critical undersea cable in the Red Sea sustained damage, disrupting internet connectivity across Asia and the Middle East. India, a key node in the global undersea cable network, also saw intermittent slowdowns in internet traffic. This incident underscores the hidden but vital role submarine cables play in sustaining the global digital economy.

Disconnecting the Backbone

Submarine cables—those fiber-optic conduits running under oceans—carry over 99% of international data exchange. They’ve become the linchpin infrastructure of global commerce, supporting e-commerce, real-time financial transactions, video conferencing, and more. India itself is enmeshed in this system, with 17 international cable systems terminating in ports like Mumbai and Chennai. Together, these cables boasted an operational capacity of 138.606 Tbps as of 2022.

But incidents like the Red Sea outage are not rare. In fact, a significant irony emerges: this cutting-edge technology is, paradoxically, extremely vulnerable to rudimentary threats. Cables can be severed or damaged by fishing activities, ship anchors, or even seismic activity. The latest disruption is part of a historical pattern of fragility that contradicts their critical importance. This points to an urgent need to rethink protection and redundancy in these undersea systems.

A Network That’s Physically Fragile

The machinery behind the global undersea cable system is immensely complex, yet physically fragile. International bodies like the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and the International Cable Protection Committee (ICPC) now recognize the risks. The newly launched International Advisory Body for Submarine Cable Resilience seeks to tackle specific challenges:

• Growing traffic on aging cable infrastructure.
• Risks from environmental changes such as rising sea levels and stronger tropical storms.
• Human threats like illegal fishing and intentional sabotage.

While the ITU and ICPC are international custodians of the system, enforcement of their safety protocols largely rests with national governments. Here lies the governance blind spot—despite India's heavy reliance on submarine cables, its National Cyber Security Policy of 2013 mentions them only briefly, offering little strategic clarity on their protection. In contrast, governments like Japan's codify intricate protocols for physical and cyber resilience, including multi-layered surveillance systems for cable landing stations.

Clear Numbers, Cloudy Signals

The performance metrics of Indian cables paint a compelling picture, but only up to a point. Yes, as of 2022, the nation’s submarine cable systems recorded an activated capacity of 111.111 Tbps. But the headline figures obscure regional disparities and coverage gaps. States dependent on longer terrestrial transmission face lower bandwidth and slower speeds due to latency. And while India boasts 14 landing stations, they remain deeply concentrated—almost monopolistically—in Chennai and Mumbai, leaving vast coastal stretches underserved.

Equally concerning is the lack of redundancy planning. The most telling data point lies in the near-absence of backup systems for critical cables. Globally, even wealthy economies like the U.S. face risks, but their cables are interwoven with more redundant routes spanning both the Atlantic and Pacific. India’s domestic systems lack such alternatives; a significant disruption would cut off key internet routes almost immediately.

Unasked but Unavoidable Questions

The Red Sea outage raises uncomfortable but inevitable questions for India. First: Why isn’t protection of undersea cables afforded national-level strategic priority? The Ministry of Science and Technology, as well as the Department of Telecommunications, appear to operate in silos here, when coordinated frameworks are clearly essential. Second: What’s the funding mechanism for future-proofing cables? Infrastructure like this often sits at the intersection of conflicting private and public ownership stakes, with carriers hesitant to invest in redundancies unless mandated by law.

Finally, geopolitical risks loom. Hostile actors have reportedly explored undersea cables as targets for disruption. While ICPC meetings regularly address this, India’s domestic defense establishment—working through bodies like the DRDO—has conspicuously bypassed any public acknowledgment of the cable network as a critical national asset.

An International Mirror

For comparison, South Korea merits attention. The country secured its undersea network after a similar episode in 2013. Seoul incentivized multi-route cable systems and relocated landing stations to protected zones, augmenting them with underwater surveillance drones. These investments ensured no single cable failure could compromise national internet access. India’s planning, by contrast, feels piecemeal and lacks a clear funding pipeline for such advanced solutions.

As India continues its ambitious Digital India push, operational redundancy, strategic security, and regional equity in connectivity cannot remain afterthoughts. The stakes involve not just internet consumption but also sectors like e-governance, fintech, and even national security, all dependent on uninterrupted global linkages.

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