South East Asia–Middle East–Western Europe 4 (SEA-ME-WE 4) is an

optical fibre An optical fiber, or optical fibre, is a flexible glass or plastic fiber that can transmit light from one end to the other. Such fibers find wide usage in fiber-optic communications, where they permit transmission over longer distances and at ...

submarine communications cable A submarine communications cable is a cable laid on the seabed between land-based stations to carry telecommunication signals across stretches of ocean and sea. The first submarine communications cables were laid beginning in the 1850s and car ...

system that carries telecommunications between

Singapore Singapore, officially the Republic of Singapore, is an island country and city-state in Southeast Asia. The country's territory comprises one main island, 63 satellite islands and islets, and one outlying islet. It is about one degree ...

Malaysia Malaysia is a country in Southeast Asia. Featuring the Tanjung Piai, southernmost point of continental Eurasia, it is a federation, federal constitutional monarchy consisting of States and federal territories of Malaysia, 13 states and thre ...

Thailand Thailand, officially the Kingdom of Thailand and historically known as Siam (the official name until 1939), is a country in Southeast Asia on the Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese Peninsula. With a population of almost 66 million, it spa ...

Bangladesh Bangladesh, officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by population, eighth-most populous country in the world and among the List of countries and dependencies by ...

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

Sri Lanka Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, also known historically as Ceylon, is an island country in South Asia. It lies in the Indian Ocean, southwest of the Bay of Bengal, separated from the Indian subcontinent, ...

Pakistan Pakistan, officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of over 241.5 million, having the Islam by country# ...

United Arab Emirates The United Arab Emirates (UAE), or simply the Emirates, is a country in West Asia, in the Middle East, at the eastern end of the Arabian Peninsula. It is a Federal monarchy, federal elective monarchy made up of Emirates of the United Arab E ...

Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in West Asia. Located in the centre of the Middle East, it covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula and has a land area of about , making it the List of Asian countries ...

Egypt Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

Tunisia Tunisia, officially the Republic of Tunisia, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It is bordered by Algeria to the west and southwest, Libya to the southeast, and the Mediterranean Sea to the north and east. Tunisia also shares m ...

Algeria Algeria, officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It is bordered to Algeria–Tunisia border, the northeast by Tunisia; to Algeria–Libya border, the east by Libya; to Alger ...

and

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

. The cable is approximately 18,800 kilometres long, and provides the primary

Internet backbone The Internet backbone is the principal data routes between large, strategically interconnected computer networks and core routers of the Internet. These data routes are hosted by commercial, government, academic and other high-capacity network ...

between

South East Asia Southeast Asia is the geographical United Nations geoscheme for Asia#South-eastern Asia, southeastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of China, east of the Indian subcontinent, and northwest of the Mainland Au ...

, the

Indian subcontinent The Indian subcontinent is a physiographic region of Asia below the Himalayas which projects into the Indian Ocean between the Bay of Bengal to the east and the Arabian Sea to the west. It is now divided between Bangladesh, India, and Pakista ...

, the

Middle East The Middle East (term originally coined in English language) is a geopolitical region encompassing the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, Turkey, Egypt, Iran, and Iraq. The term came into widespread usage by the United Kingdom and western Eur ...

and

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

Network topology

The SEA-ME-WE 4 system is divided into four segments with sixteen landing points:

Segments

*S1 -

Tuas Tuas ( ) is a planning area located within the West Region of Singapore. It is bounded by the Western Water Catchment to its north, Pioneer to its east and the Straits of Johor to its west. Tuas also shares a maritime boundary with the Weste ...

Mumbai Mumbai ( ; ), also known as Bombay ( ; its official name until 1995), is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra. Mumbai is the financial capital and the most populous city proper of India with an estimated population of 12 ...

*S2 -

Suez Suez (, , , ) is a Port#Seaport, seaport city with a population of about 800,000 in north-eastern Egypt, located on the north coast of the Gulf of Suez on the Red Sea, near the southern terminus of the Suez Canal. It is the capital and largest c ...

*S3 -

Alexandria Alexandria ( ; ) is the List of cities and towns in Egypt#Largest cities, second largest city in Egypt and the List of coastal settlements of the Mediterranean Sea, largest city on the Mediterranean coast. It lies at the western edge of the Nile ...

*S4 -

Marseille Marseille (; ; see #Name, below) is a city in southern France, the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Departments of France, department of Bouches-du-Rhône and of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur Regions of France, region. Situated in the ...

;Landing points

History

The SEA-ME-WE 4 cable system was developed by a consortium of 16 telecommunications companies which agreed to construct the project on 27 March 2004. Construction of the system was carried out by

Alcatel Submarine Networks Alcatel Submarine Networks (ASN) is a French company and one of the three world leaders in the manufacture and installation of submarine cables. It was a subsidiary of Alcatel, then Alcatel-Lucent, until it was acquired by the Finnish group No ...

(now a division of

Alcatel-Lucent Alcatel-Lucent S.A. () was a multinational telecommunications equipment company, headquartered in Boulogne-Billancourt, Paris, France. The company focused on Fixed line telephone, fixed, Mobile phone, mobile and telecommunications convergence, ...

) and Fujitsu. The eighteen month construction project was completed on 13 December 2005 with a cost estimate of US$500 million. Segment 1 construction, running 8,000 kilometres from Singapore to India, was done by Fujitsu, which also provided the submarine repeater equipment for Segment 4.

Outages

30 January 2008

On 30 January 2008, Internet services were widely disrupted in the Middle East and in the Indian subcontinent following damage to the SEA-ME-WE 4 and

FLAG A flag is a piece of textile, fabric (most often rectangular) with distinctive colours and design. It is used as a symbol, a signalling device, or for decoration. The term ''flag'' is also used to refer to the graphic design employed, and fla ...

Telecom cables in the Mediterranean Sea. Disruptions of 70 percent in Egypt, and 60 percent in India were reported along with problems in Bahrain, Bangladesh, Kuwait, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates. In India, small users felt the impact while ISPs could service large users who have more lucrative contracts. While the respective contributions of the two cable systems to this blackout is unclear, network outage graphs show anomalies at 04:30

UTC Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) is the primary time standard globally used to regulate clocks and time. It establishes a reference for the current time, forming the basis for civil time and time zones. UTC facilitates international communica ...

and again at 08:00 UTC. The

FALCON Falcons () are birds of prey in the genus ''Falco'', which includes about 40 species. Some small species of falcons with long, narrow wings are called hobbies, and some that hover while hunting are called kestrels. Falcons are widely distrib ...

submarine communications cable was reported severed off the coast of Dubai in the

Persian Gulf The Persian Gulf, sometimes called the Arabian Gulf, is a Mediterranean seas, mediterranean sea in West Asia. The body of water is an extension of the Arabian Sea and the larger Indian Ocean located between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula.Un ...

on 1 February 2008, making it the third over a two-day period. Though the cause of the damage to SEA-ME-WE 4 or FLAG has not been declared by either cable operator and 12 hours of video before and after the incident show no ships being in the area, a number of sources speculate these were caused by a ship's anchor near Alexandria, while the Kuwait government attributes the breaks to "weather conditions and maritime traffic". ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' reported that the damage occurred to the two systems separately near Alexandria and Marseilles. The water near Alexandria is restricted and Egypt knew of "no passing ships" at the time. For a number of days, SEA-ME-WE 3 was the only remaining cable connecting Europe to the Middle East via Egypt. Data transmission capacity between India and Europe was reduced by 75 percent, causing much of the traffic between these sites to be rerouted through the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans.

19 December 2008

On 19 December 2008, the cable was again severed, simultaneously with

SEA-ME-WE 3 SEA-ME-WE3 or South-East Asia - Middle East - Western Europe 3 was an optical submarine telecommunications cable linking those regions and is the longest in the world. Completed in late 2000, it is led by France Telecom and China Telecom, and i ...

, the FLAG FEA cable, and the

GO-1 Cable Information GO-1 Mediterranean cable system is a submarine communications cable system that links Sicily to Malta, operated by the Maltese telecommunications company GO plc. It currently consists of two cables of four cable pairs, the fi ...

cable. It was expected to be operating again by 25 December.

14 April 2010 shunt fault

On 14 April 2010 the cable had a shunt fault approximately 1,886 kilometers from Alexandria towards Palermo, Italy, on the segment between Alexandria and Marseille.

May 2010 fault

Another cable fault, disrupting the connection between Malaysia, Mumbai and Europe.

5 July 2010

Services between Mumbai and Mombasa were down from 9:19 GMT/5 July 2010. Services in South Africa, all regions was also experienced and rerouting was experienced. On Mweb's website it was listed as ADSL Outage number 8084.

11 May 2012 fault

The submarine cable South East Asia-Middle East-Western Europe 4 (SeaMeWe-4) was reportedly cut near Alexandria, disrupting internet services in Pakistan. Reportedly SMW4 was cut in April 2012 too, but was restored on the same day.

6 June 2012 fault

On this day, at around 18:30 (GMT+8), Sea-Me-We 4 had a cut near Singapore causing disruption to voice and internet services from Singapore and Malaysia to Bangladesh. Service disruption affected the eastern route into Bangladesh while western one is not affected.

27 March 2013 fault

A cut in the segment 4 of South East Asia-Middle East-Western Europe 4 (SEA-ME-WE 4) submarine optical fiber cable on Wednesday morning (27 March 2013) has been reported leading to a degradation of internet speed by 60% in several countries including Pakistan and Egypt. A consortium of SEA-ME-WE-4 Cable System is working on the fault but they have not come up with a resolution time for this problem and confirmed nature of fault is yet to be determined Three men were arrested for trying to cut the cable near Alexandria. The issue was resolved on the 8 April 2013.

25–28 December 2013 fault

Fiber cut in SMW4 segment 3 (Egypt terrestrial path). Slow internet speeds throughout Pakistan according to a tweet from a Pakistan telecom engineer.

20 November - 18 December 2014 fault

Fiber had a fault, according to a news article. Unconfirmed reports claim that it was repaired on 18 December, although its effects were still being observed for at least several days more.

19 January 2015 fault

According to news articles, this fiber had a technical issue. These reports claimed that this would be repaired within a week.

22 October 2015 fault

Fiber cut in SMW4 (Algeria Path), according to a news article. "The internet access will be disrupted for several days in Algeria following a cut on a submarine cable linking Annaba (600 km east of Algiers) to Marseille ( south -eastern France), announced Thursday, October 22 Algeria Telecom in a statement". Unconfirmed reports on when it was due to be repaired, its effects were still being observed until 26 October.

13-15 April 2017 fault

Fiber damaged in SMW4 (Algeria Path), according to a news article. "The internet access will be disrupted for several hours from Friday at 01:00 to 18:00 in Algeria following a cut on a submarine cable linking Annaba (600 km east of Algiers) to Marseille (south -eastern France). The damage caused to the landing chamber caused by the bad weather recorded on the coast of Annaba on 6 March 2016, Algeria Telecom Initiated several actions aimed at securing and protecting these installations ... ", explained the same source announced 3 days before, 12 April Algeria Telecom in a statement. These reports claimed that this would be repaired within two days. However, another report explained that the cable was still being repaired on 15 April due to some technical complications.

Management and administration

The SEA-ME-WE 4 cable system was proposed and developed by the SEA-ME-WE 4 Consortium. The Consortium continues to maintain and operate the system. It comprises 16 telecommunications companies: *

Algérie Télécom Algeria Telecommunications Corporation (, ) is a state-owned and the main telephone company in Algeria. It is the sole operator of the fixed telephony network and ADSL in the country. Algérie Télécom is a subsidiary of after the latter's ...

* Bharti Infotel Limited,

* Bangladesh Submarine Cable Company Limited (BSCCL),

* CAT Telecom Public Company Limited,

* Emirates Telecommunication Corporation (ETISALAT),

UAE The United Arab Emirates (UAE), or simply the Emirates, is a country in West Asia, in the Middle East, at the eastern end of the Arabian Peninsula. It is a federal elective monarchy made up of seven emirates, with Abu Dhabi serving as i ...

France Telecom Orange S.A. (; formerly , stylised as france telecom) is a French multinational telecommunications corporation founded in 1988 and headquartered in Issy-les-Moulineaux, near Paris. ''Orange'' has been the corporation's main brand for mobile, ...

- Long Distance Networks,

* MCI,

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited Pakistan Telecommunication Company Ltd., commonly known as PTCL, is the national telecommunication company in Pakistan.Pakistan Pakistan, officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of over 241.5 million, having the Islam by country# ...

* Singapore Telecommunications Limited (SingTel),

* Sri Lanka Telecom PLC (SLT),

Saudi Telecom Company The Saudi Telecom Company (shortened to stc; ), trading as STC Group provides ICT services in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, across the Middle East and Europe. The group offers landline and fixed infrastructure, mobile and data services, and br ...

(STC),

Telecom Egypt Telecom Egypt (), is Egypt's primary telephone company. It started in 1854 with the first telegraph line in Egypt. In 1998, it replaced the former Arab Republic of Egypt National Telecommunication Organization (ARENTO). The company has a fixed- ...

(TE),

* Telecom Italia Sparkle S.p.A.,

Telekom Malaysia Berhad Telekom Malaysia Berhad or simply TM is a Malaysian telecommunications company that was founded in 1984. Beginning as the national telecommunications company for fixed line, radio, and television broadcasting services, it has evolved to become ...

(TM),

Tunisie Telecom Tunisie Telecom is the incumbent telecom operator in Tunisia. Tunisie Telecom has more than 6 million subscribers in the fixed and mobile telephony, in Tunisia and abroad. History Tunisie Telecom has an important role in improving the rate of ...

Tata Communications Tata Communications Limited (previously known as Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited) is an Indian telecommunications company. It was a government-owned telecommunications service provider before being sold to the Tata Group in 2002 under the Third ...

previously

Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited Tata Communications Limited (previously known as Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited) is an Indian telecommunications company. It was a government-owned telecommunications service provider before being sold to the Tata Group in 2002 under the Third ...

(VSNL),

The consortium is a

hierarchical organisation A hierarchical organization or hierarchical organisation (see spelling differences) is an organizational structure where every entity in the organization, except one, is subordinate to a single other entity. This arrangement is a form of hierarchy ...

which operates, manages and administers the cable system. At the top of the hierarchy is the Management Committee, which steers the project. Bodies subordinate to the Management Committee include the Procurement Group; Operation and Maintenance; the Financial & Administrative Subcommittee; Assignment, Routing and Restoration; and Investment and Agreement. Other bodies in the organisation are the Central Billing Party which is subordinate to the Financial & Administrative Subcommittee, and the Network Administrator which is subordinate to Assignment, Routing and Restoration.

previously

(VSNL),

is the Network Administrator. For this purpose, Tata Comm has developed a state of the art Network Administration Software system which enables online request processing, job scheduling and report generation etc. This system will make the capacity management very efficient for bandwidth owners. This system is accessible online at http://www.seamewe4.net.

is the Central Billing Party.

Applications

SEA-ME-WE 4 is used to carry "telephone, internet, multimedia and various broadband data applications". The SEA-ME-WE 3 and the SEA-ME-WE 4 cable systems are intended to provide redundancy for each other. The two cable systems are complementary, but separate, and 4 is not intended to replace 3. Both derive from the same series of projects ( SEA-ME-WE), but have different emphases. SEA-ME-WE 3 is far longer at 39,000 kilometres (compare to SEA-ME-WE 4's 18,800 kilometres) and extends from Japan and Australia along the bottom of the Eurasian landmass to Ireland and Germany. SEA-ME-WE 4 has a faster rate of data transmission at 1.28 Tbit/s against SEA-ME-WE 3's 0.96 Tbit/s. SEA-ME-WE 3 provides connectivity to a greater number of countries over a greater distance, but SEA-ME-WE 4 provides far higher data transmission speeds intended to accommodate increasing demand for high-speed internet access in developing countries.

Technologies

The cable uses dense wavelength-division multiplexing (DWDM), allowing for increased communications capacity per fibre compared to fibres carrying non-multiplexed signals and also facilitates bidirectional communication within a single fibre. DWDM does this by

multiplexing In telecommunications and computer networking, multiplexing (sometimes contracted to muxing) is a method by which multiple analog or digital signals are combined into one signal over a shared medium. The aim is to share a scarce resource� ...

different

wavelength In physics and mathematics, wavelength or spatial period of a wave or periodic function is the distance over which the wave's shape repeats. In other words, it is the distance between consecutive corresponding points of the same ''phase (waves ...

s of

laser light A laser is a device that emits light through a process of optical amplification based on the stimulated emission of electromagnetic radiation. The word ''laser'' originated as an acronym for light amplification by stimulated emission of radi ...

on a single optical fibre so that multiple

optical carrier Synchronous Optical Networking (SONET) and Synchronous Digital Hierarchy (SDH) are standardized protocols that transfer multiple digital bit streams synchronously over optical fiber using lasers or highly coherent light from light-emitting diode ...

signals can be concurrently transmitted along that fibre. Two fibre pairs are used with each pair able to carry 64 carriers at 10 Gbit/s each. This enables

terabit per second In telecommunications, data transfer rate is the average number of bits (bitrate), characters or symbols ( baudrate), or data blocks per unit time passing through a communication link in a data-transmission system. Common data rate units are mult ...

speeds along the SEA-WE-ME 4 cable, with a total capacity of 1,280 Gbit/s. In February 2011 the consortium awarded contracts to upgrade submarine segments capacity to 40 Gbit/s per link, along with landing sites equipment capable of 100 Gbit/s for future needs. On February 3, 2015 Mitsubishi Electric announced that it has completed the upgrade and the expansion of the South East Asia ─ Middle East ─ Western Europe 4 (SEA-ME-WE 4) Cable System. Mitsubishi Electric supplied its 100G MF-6900GWS Submarine Line Terminal Equipment (SLTE) with incorporated superior coherent technology for all 16 landing stations to upgrade the current 40 Gbit/s cable system to 100 Gbit/s and expand the ultimate design capacity from 2,800 Gbit/s to 4,600 Gbit/s. The new SLTE doubled the data capacity per rack and reduce power consumption per unit of data volume by 47% for each station.

Interception

In August 2013 a major German newspaper claimed that an alliance of Western and Asian intelligence agencies has managed to tap into the cable. The ''

Süddeutsche Zeitung The ''Süddeutsche Zeitung'' (; ), published in Munich, Bavaria, is one of the largest and most influential daily newspapers in Germany. The tone of ''SZ'' is mainly described as centre-left, liberal, social-liberal, progressive-liberal, and ...

'', Germany’s largest broadsheet newspaper, wrote that

GCHQ Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) is an intelligence and security organisation responsible for providing signals intelligence (SIGINT) and information assurance (IA) to the government and armed forces of the United Kingdom. Primar ...

has been leading the interception effort, supported by the

National Security Agency The National Security Agency (NSA) is an intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense, under the authority of the director of national intelligence (DNI). The NSA is responsible for global monitoring, collection, and proces ...

, which is GCHQ’s American equivalent. The paper cited

Edward Snowden Edward Joseph Snowden (born June 21, 1983) is a former National Security Agency (NSA) intelligence contractor and whistleblower who leaked classified documents revealing the existence of global surveillance programs. Born in 1983 in Elizabeth ...

as the source of the information.John Goetz, Hans Leyendecker and Frederik Obermaier (28 August 2013)
"British Officials Have Far-Reaching Access To Internet And Telephone Communications"
(accessed 30.8.2013)

References

External links

South East Asia Middle East Western Europe 4 project websiteSEA-ME-WE4 Network Administration SystemWork begins to repair severed net
5 February 2008) {{Submarine communications cables in the Pacific Ocean Submarine communications cables in the Arabian Sea Submarine communications cables in the Indian Ocean Submarine communications cables in the Mediterranean Sea Submarine communications cables in the Pacific Ocean Submarine communications cables in the Red Sea 2005 establishments in Africa 2005 establishments in Asia 2005 establishments in Europe 2005 establishments in Tamil Nadu 2005 establishments in Maharashtra Telecommunications in India