Middle East Internet to Stay Sluggish for Months After Red Sea Cable Cuts

If your internet has been acting slow lately, you’re not alone. Two major subsea cables—SMW4 (SEA-ME-WE 4) and IMEWE—were damaged near Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, disrupting traffic across the Middle East. The result? Sluggish connections in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, India, and parts of Africa.

⚠️ Confirmed: A series of subsea cable outages in the Red Sea has degraded internet connectivity in multiple countries including #Pakistan and #India; the incident is attributed to failures affecting the SMW4 and IMEWE cable systems near Jeddah, Saudi Arabia 📉 pic.twitter.com/cLsO3cxKbI

— NetBlocks (@netblocks) September 6, 2025

UAE users feel the slowdown

Over the weekend, UAE residents reported trouble loading websites, streaming, and using messaging apps. Complaints spiked on Downdetector around 9 pm Saturday, showing widespread impact. Customers of Etisalat by e& and du were among those affected, with both providers responding on social media without confirming the exact cause.

Why the Red Sea matters

Here’s the kicker: the Red Sea corridor carries about 17% of the world’s internet traffic between Asia, Europe, and Africa. It’s basically one of the internet’s busiest highways. Even a small cut in this region can ripple across continents, slowing down everyone from casual Netflix users to financial institutions and airlines.

Repairs won’t be quick

Fixing subsea cables isn’t a simple “plug it back in” job. It involves sending out specialized repair ships, hauling cables from the ocean floor, and carefully splicing them back together. Add in unpredictable weather and regional tensions, and you’re looking at a process that can drag on for weeks—or even months.

What’s next

Until repairs are done, operators are rerouting traffic through longer, more crowded paths, which explains the lag in streaming and messaging. Tech giants like Microsoft have already warned users of higher-than-usual latency in the Middle East. Experts say this incident highlights the urgent need for backup routes and satellite alternatives to avoid similar digital headaches in the future.

This article was previously published on UAE Moments. To see the original article, click here