SEA-ME-WE 3

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SEA-ME-WE 3 or South-East Asia - Middle East - Western Europe 3 is an optical submarine telecommunications cable linking those regions and is the longest in the world, completed in late 2000. It is operated by India's Tata Indicom and 92 other investors from the telecom industry. It was commissioned in March 2000 in India.

It is 39,000 km in length and uses Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) technology to increase capacity and enhance the quality of the signal, especially over long distances (this cable stretches from North Germany to Australia and Japan).

[edit] Landing points

The route (in red) and landing points (numbered in black)

It has 39 landing points in:

Norden, Germany
Oostende, Belgium
Goonhilly, England, UK
Penmarch, France
Sesimbra, Portugal
Tetuan, Morocco
Mazara del Vallo, Italy
Chania, Greece
Marmaris, Turkey
Yeroskipou, Cyprus
Alexandria, Egypt
Suez, Egypt
Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
Djibouti, Djibouti
Muscat, Oman
Fujairah, United Arab Emirates
Karachi, Pakistan
Mumbai, India
Cochin, India
Mount Lavinia, Sri Lanka
Pyapon, Myanmar
Satun, Thailand
Penang, Malaysia (Where it meets the SAFE and the FLAG cables.)
Medan, Indonesia
Tuas, Singapore
Jakarta, Indonesia
Perth, Australia
Mersing, Malaysia
Tungku, Brunei
Danang, Vietnam
Batangas, Philippines
Taipa, Macau
Deep Water Bay, Hong Kong
Shantou, China
Fengshan, Taiwan
Toucheng, Taiwan
Shanghai, China
Keoje, South Korea
Okinawa, Japan

[edit] Service disruptions

On the 26 December 2006 this link was severed, causing major disruption to internet services to and from the Far East. The cause of this was suspected to be a magnitude 7.1 earthquake off the coast of Taiwan. It was stated that the link would take 3 weeks to repair. ^[1]

On 30 January, 2008 a ship's anchor^{[citation needed]} off Egypt's Alexandria coast is thought to have cut the newer SEA-ME-WE 4 cable, which is intended to provide redundancy, causing slow Internet connections and disruption to international calls to the U.S. and Europe from the Middle East and South Asia. Over 70 percent of the network in Egypt was down. Although central to India's largest carrier, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited, the deputy-director general of that organisation said "Only 10 to 15 percent of our connectivity with the international gateway faced problems"^[2].