The Tool Desk
Outbyte PC Repair FREERepair Windows errors before they cause bigger problemsFix Now →Outbyte Driver Updater FREEFix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitchesFind Drivers →A subsea cable cut disables one fiber route—not the whole internet. Providers can shift traffic to other submarine cables, land-based fiber, or other available paths. If those routes have room, most users may notice little. If alternatives are limited or congested, connections can slow, some services may fail, and regions with few routes can suffer major outages.
Why one cable cut does not automatically take the internet offline
Subsea telecommunications cables carry internet, phone, and other data between countries and continents. Glass fibers inside the cables transmit information as light. At shore landing stations, that light is converted into electronic data and fed into national networks, as the Australian Government’s Cable Connectivity & Resilience Centre explains.
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Those networks also connect to terrestrial fiber and local internet exchange points (IXPs). A break affects traffic that depends on the damaged route; it does not switch off every other route or every network. The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) says submarine cables carry approximately 99% of global internet traffic. That figure describes how much traffic is carried by submarine cables collectively, not how much would be lost if any one cable were cut (ITU backgrounder, last updated April 2026).
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What users may notice after a cable break
Little or no visible change
If an internet service provider (ISP) or content provider can move traffic onto other routes with spare capacity, your connection may appear normal. Local exchanges and cached copies of popular content can also keep some traffic close to home rather than sending it over the damaged international route.
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Slower or less reliable connections
Rerouted data may travel farther, adding delay, or compete for limited capacity on the remaining paths. The ITU identifies slower connectivity and interruptions as risks when cables fail. During the March 2024 West Africa incident, latency increased and availability fell in affected areas (Internet Society report).
Some apps or services fail while others work
Different services can depend on different providers, data centers, or routes. During the same West Africa incident, Microsoft services were disrupted in parts of Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA), then restored after traffic was rerouted. The disruption was not limited to the countries directly affected by the cable damage.
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A serious local or regional outage
If several cables share a vulnerable point, or a region depends on only a few cable systems, the remaining routes may not have enough capacity. Côte d’Ivoire experienced a near-total internet outage during the March 2024 West Africa event, while other networks kept service through unaffected cables and cross-border terrestrial fiber.
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What determines how severe the disruption is
- Route diversity: Other cables and landing stations help most when they avoid the same vulnerable area. During the West Africa incident, multiple affected cables converged at a physical point; an unaffected cable helped some networks maintain uptime.
- Terrestrial alternatives: Cross-border fiber can carry traffic to a different landing station. In East Africa, terrestrial links also carried submarine capacity onward to landlocked countries.
- Local interconnection and cached content: IXPs let local networks exchange traffic locally, while cached content can remain available without reaching an overseas server. These helped limit the impact in East Africa.
- Available capacity: A backup route is useful only if it can carry the displaced traffic. A path that exists but is congested may still mean slower or unreliable service.
- Repair logistics: Rerouting can begin before a cable is repaired, but physical restoration depends on repair vessels and crews reaching the fault, along with access and permitting requirements.
What outages in East and West Africa show
East Africa, May 2024
On May 12, 2024, the SEACOM and EASSy cables were damaged off KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. The Internet Society reported that Burundi, Malawi, Mozambique, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda were among the most affected, because they relied predominantly on those systems to reach cloud services in South Africa. No country had a total internet outage: other submarine and cross-border terrestrial routes, IXPs, and local caches remained available. The cables were reported repaired by June 3, about three weeks after the damage (Internet Society report).
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West Africa, March 2024
Multiple cable cuts caused substantial disruption, including a near-total outage in Côte d’Ivoire. Unaffected cables and terrestrial links helped other networks preserve service. Niger maintained connectivity over satellite and terrestrial fiber through Burkina Faso into Benin. The report gives restoration estimates for individual affected cables ranging from late March to mid-May 2024; those incident-specific estimates are not a general repair timetable (Internet Society report).
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.How long does a subsea cable take to repair?
There is no universal repair duration. A repair requires specialized marine operations, and the time depends on vessel and crew availability, travel to the fault, and access or permitting rules. The East Africa cables damaged on May 12, 2024, were reported repaired by June 3—about three weeks. The ITU identifies limited repair-vessel availability, longer repair times, and regulatory barriers as resilience concerns (ITU, February 2026).
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The ITU’s April 2026 backgrounder reports more than 170 cable repairs worldwide in 2025, based on International Cable Protection Committee data—an average equivalent to almost four repairs per week. This is a count of reported repairs, not simultaneous internet outages or a measure of the chance that a particular user will lose service (ITU backgrounder).
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What to do if your connection is affected
- Check whether the problem is local. Check your ISP’s outage notices and test another device or a wired connection if available. If only one device or Wi-Fi is affected, the cause may be inside your home rather than an international route.
- Follow your ISP’s updates. An upstream disruption may affect particular services or areas differently, so a working connection to one site does not rule out a wider routing problem.
- Do not expect a router reboot to repair a cable. Restarting equipment may help with a local router issue, but it cannot restore an international fiber route that is down.
- Consider backup connectivity only for the right use case. Satellite communications or portable satellite communication units can help some remote or critical operations, depending on location and availability. They are not a universal or necessarily cost-effective substitute for broadband, and they do not repair the damaged cable. In Bangladesh, terrestrial connections with India and locally cached content helped maintain service during a 2023 cable outage (Internet Society).
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