Submarine cable damage in the Red Sea ‘severely underestimated’

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A new report from network service provider RETN says the cable cuts impacted up to 70% of Europe–Asia data traffic – far greater than the 25% previously estimated

In October last year, the Red Sea became a hotbed of paramilitary activity, with Yemeni Houthis beginning to attack commercial shipping, ostensibly as a result the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas.

By February this year, the ‘Red Sea crisis’ had escalated to become a major issue for the international telecoms community, with submarine cables in the region being badly damaged, severely disrupting data traffic in Europe, Africa, and Asia.

Whether the damage to these cables was caused deliberately or not remains unclear, with one prominent theory suggesting that a ship being attacked by rebels hastily deployed its anchor, which then severed the cables.

To make matters worse, efforts to repair the affected cables were heavily delayed, both due to the militarised nature of the area, as well as by legal challenges related to the Yemeni government.

The impact of this lengthy saga on data transport in the region has been difficult to measure, but initial estimates suggested around 25% of data traffic had been affected.

Today, however, a new whitepaper from RETN suggests that this figure has been drastically underestimated, with their own metrics putting the amount of traffic disrupted at up to 70%.

This figure is based on the company’s own network diagnostics and feedback from customers, including major consumer ISPs in Southeast Asia.

RETN uses this data as a springboard to discuss the wider issue of submarine cable system resiliency, calling for the creation of additional data routes to avoid ‘single points of failure’.

Alongside the cable incidents in the Red Sea, the paper also points at damage to the SEA-ME-WE 5 cable in the Strait of Malacca – another submarine cable bottleneck – in April this year. This damage was particularly damaging to connectivity in Bangladesh, where SMW-5 is one of just two subsea cables connecting the country. According to the report, the damage to the cable reduced Bangladesh’s internet capacity by a third.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, smaller and less economically developed countries are less likely to be supported by a wider range of data transport routes, making them particularly vulnerable to largescale disruption.

“We are at a pivotal moment in network connectivity, and to be fully transparent, the industry is not equipped to meet current demands,” said RETN’s CEO Tony O’Sullivan. “With geopolitical events, natural disasters, cable cuts, design flaws, cybersecurity attacks and a shortage of new cables, we’re really not too far away from entire countries becoming digitally inaccessible when the one or two cables that connect them go down.”

The paper argues that the process of building the new systems is moving too slowly, hampered by geopolitical tensions, regulatory issues, and ongoing supply chain shortages.

RETN, therefore, is calling on industry to redouble its efforts in creating new data routes, calling for “at least 4 routes for any geography, preferably 5+” to ensure lasting resiliency.

“Having the global infrastructure in place to overcome these challenges requires industry-wide investment, but that means a wide-reaching movement of prioritising customers over short-term gains. Undoubtedly, there are some key players with the power that can take actionable steps immediately to make a difference,” said O’Sullivan.

Is the submarine cable industry doing enough to ensure the stability of global data routes? Join the discussion at Submarine Networks EMEA 2025

Also in the news:
Vodafone and Three defend merger amid CMA warnings
Verizon offloads mobile towers to Vertical Bridge for $3.3bn
Korea Telecom and Microsoft sign multibillion-dollar AI partnership



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