Two new submarine cables of Tata and GBI will become operational during this year to further improve international connectivity for the Kingdom, TRA’s Chairman Dr. Mohammed Al Amer said commenting on the recent incident of Falcon Submarine Cable Service Disruption.
“ Diversified access to international connectivity is a key element for the development of the broadband market in Bahrain. Today ISPs are taking advantage of more diverse international connections than ever before,” he said,
Dr Al Amer said: “Previous studies affirmed the improvements of connectivity to Bahrain that have occurred during the last 12 months which resulted in a minimal impact during the incident of the Falcon cut of last month.”
“On 18 March 2011, at 20:48 GMT the Falcon submarine cable service supporting access to the Global Internet and other data services to Bahrain had been disrupted due to a suspected damaged fiber. The cable is one of the current four diverse physical Telecom routes that connects the Kingdom of Bahrain to the rest of the world and the incident resulted in lower browsing experience during peak hours for some users. The fault was confirmed to be a damaged fiber off the coast of Dubai,” he said.
“Very close to the incident, the cable needed to be maintained due to a shunt problem and both operations were performed at the same time. A cable ship was mobilized and reached the fault location on 22 March starting repair operations for an estimate seven days of work. On 31 March, after completion of the initial repair, another problem was identified requiring the ship to move and perform additional work on the cable.
“On 3 April, around 22:09 GMT the Falcon submarine cable service was restored and the internet services were confirmed stable after a monitoring period of 24 hours.