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Fears of internet cuts rise amid US-Iran war: Red Sea cables and the India connect
However, with the US-Iran war escalating daily, the fear of a severe internet outage has increased, especially with the Houthis joining the fight.
As the war in West Asia continues to rage , fears and concerns regarding internet disruptions have increased due to possible cuts in the Red Sea cables. While Iran has not officially threatened the cutting of the submarine communications cables, several accounts of X have warned of the possibility as tensions rise between the US, Israel and Iran.
The last time the world saw a cut in the Red Sea cables was in September 2025, which was allegedly caused by a commercial ship which dragged its anchor and severed several of the undersea fibre optic cables.
Due to this incident, several countries saw disruptions in internet connectivity, especially in West and South Asia.
However, with the US-Iran war escalating daily, the fear of a severe internet outage has increased, especially with the Yemeni militant group Houthis joining the fight.
The Iran-backed group has on several occasions threatened to cut the fibre optic cables in the Red Sea through their social media channels.
Due to this, the potential of a future attack from the Houthis on the Red Sea cables cannot be ruled out.
Red Sea cables and internet connection
As per the International Cable Protection Committee, the September 2025 incident impacted four major cables -
- The South East Asia–Middle East–Western Europe 4
- India-Middle East-Western Europe cable
- FALCON GCX
- Europe India Gateway
John Wrottesley from the ICPC told the Associated Press last year that around 30% of annual cable incidents are caused by dragged anchors, which account for roughly 60 faults per year.
However, with the ongoing conflict in West Asia, a deliberate disruption is now a key worry in the world.
The cables in the Red Sea are responsible for a large number of services such as financial transactions, cloud services, video calls, emails and even workloads for artificial intelligence networks.
What would a cut in the Red Sea mean for India?
India was also affected by the September 2025 incident. While internet services did not come to a halt, major networks across India faced outages and latency.
Given India's growing reliance on cloud services, digital payments, and AI devices, any damage to cables in the Red Sea could hamper connectivity and lead to major economic consequences for the nation.
Nearly 95 percent of global international data flows through these undersea cables. Of this, India currently hosts 17 such cables across 14 landing stations in Mumbai, Chennai, Cochin, Tuticorin, and Trivandrum.
India remains prone to congestion and performance issues on the internet due to the conflict in West Asia, and with the Red Sea and Strait of Hormuz remaining risky zones.
Furthermore, India’s internet traffic remains unevenly distributed, with about two-thirds routed through Mumbai and the rest through Chennai, which could serve as a weak point for the country.
If anything were to go wrong at Mumbai or Chennai, be it natural disaster or a technical failure, a large portion of the country would see disruptions in connectivity.
