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Undersea cable damage: Muscat faces the heat

MUSCAT — The Internet service across Oman might be limping back to normality, but it has certainly affected a cross-section of people across the corporate ladder with the service being either non-existent or very slow.

Breaks in three submarine cables, which link Europe and the Middle East, are said to have disrupted the Internet services in parts of the Middle East and South Asia for the last four days.

Users in Oman are sure the disruption reduced Oman’s Internet connectivity by about 80 per cent.

Mohammed Sayed, head of Global Markets, Sales, Oman, Standard Chartered Bank, says he felt the effects of the disruption of e-mail services.

“The financial crisis seen globally of late has put pressure on the need for quick settlement of transactions as well as the reliance on a need to exchange information at a faster pace. Reliance on e-mail as a means of confirming transactions plays an integral part of our business and hence delays due to e-mail servers being down seriously hampers business transactions,” he says.

Mohammed Sayed explains that client requests are not received and mails to clients are being delayed; clients are therefore not aware of their dealings with the institution.

He has been affected on a personal level too.

“Being an expat and having the Internet down has hampered me from corresponding via providers like Yahoo and MSN, as well as from transacting any financial obligations on a personal basis,” he says. Saloni Suri, senior account executive, Asdaa can’t agree more.

“Our work has suffered so much that I can’t begin to tell you. Our business is not restricted to Oman. It extends beyond. The minute you depend on other markets it means a lot of correspondence... that is just not happening. We are so depended on the net that half our work remained undone,” she says.

Saloni, however, sees a positive side to the story.

“At least it is back to personal connectivity. I am calling and SMSing people. I must say I am using the fax a lot too,” she smiles. Syeda Tabinda Bukhari, marketing specialist, Information & Awareness Department, MSM, says the net being down has certainly delayed her communications with her clients.

“Half of my job is based on research and most of the research material I receive is on the Internet which was certainly delayed. Everybody seems to be annoyed as they are not able to send e-mails and this disruption has led to a lot of confusion,” she says.

Tabinda had other worries to tackle because of the disruption. “I have a sister who is a student of Medicine in China-Thaishan and my only source of daily communication with her besides the expensive telephone calls is the Internet which was unavailable for two days. To make things worse it being winter she suffers from asthma and the family has been really worried as there was no contact with her,” she explains.

“I must say generally things have been really slow and unorganised in the past two days,” she says.

Melonie Pender was in Dubai at the weekend and the Internet problems slowed things down at the checkouts especially since she was paying by card.

“It’s also put paid to any last minute on-line shopping I was going to do for Christmas; my children have been complaining that it’s slowed down their Internet chatting — although I don’t necessarily think that is a bad thing,” says this mum of twin boys.

M.K. Janaki Raman, general manager, Bahwan IT LLC, perhaps sums up the Internet disruption story perfectly. “Today, all businesses have come to depend on Internet for their day-to-day activities and it is important that Oman build an excellent infrastructure with good backup options so that even if one link gets cut customers are able to continue thru an alternate route. The disruption we have experienced in the last few days has been minimal but this should serve as an eye opener and should help plan for better links in the coming days,” he says.