New Delhi: The internet users in the country can heave a sigh of relief as majority of the internet services, which were disrupted following a major international cable breakdown, have been restored.

"Almost all the internet links in the country have been restored. The Internet Service Providers have shifted their traffic to other alternate route," Internet Service Providers Association of India President Rajesh Chharia told reporters.

About 25 per cent of the links, which were down earlier in the day, have been restored, he said. Internet services were disrupted on Wednesday night due to damage to two international undersea cables off Egypt coast. About 50-60 per cent of the capacity was affected due to rupture in the cables, which connect India to Western Europe, due to anchoring of ships near Alexandria. However, it would take 10-12 days to repair the damaged cables and shift the traffic back to them.

He said big BPO firms and companies were not affected as they had their back-up plan but the fault might have affected small BPOs which operate only through a single route. International long distance and Internet traffic to Europe and the US got affected due to the breakdown.

The Department of Telecom had yesterday reviewed the situation with senior officials and service providers, and said the link would be restored by ILD operators in 10 days. Meanwhile, service provider VSNL, in a statement, said it has restored most of its internet links within 24 hours of the cable breakdown.

VSNL, Reliance and Bharti Airtel were in constant touch with Telecom Egypt to ensure speedy repair of the two submarine cables SEMEWE-4 Cable (SMW-4) and FLAG Cable. The circuits working on these cables are being shifted by the three firms to other cables such as SMW-3 cable and pacific route cables to restore the telecommunication links.

Source : PTI