80 pc of Internet capacity is back, says Egypt

CAIRO, EGYPT: More than 80 per cent of Egypt's Internet capacity has been restored, the government said on Sunday, two days after breaks in cables under the Mediterranean disrupted the service in the Arab country.

The breaks, possibly caused by a ship's anchor, also hit the Internet and international telephone services in other parts of the Middle East and South Asia.

The Egyptian Ministry of Communications and Information Technology said in a statement it has not received complaints from financial institutions in the country about any disruption to their performance.

"But there remains some tangible impact on call centres," the statement said, quoting an unnamed ministry official.

A ship carrying a submarine repair robot was on its way to the site between Sicily and Tunisia, with work expected to take until the end of the year, a spokesman for ship owner and telecom operator France Telecom said on Saturday.

The undersea cables, owned by different consortiums including France Telecom, were damaged between 0728 GMT and 0806 GMT on Friday. A fourth minor cable linking Malta and Italy may also have been affected, the spokesman said.

The Egyptian ministry said contacts would be made with the owners of the cables and the relevant authorities about "the appropriate compensations".