The undersea Internet cable between Lithuania and Sweden of the Lithuanian operator Telia was cut this week. This was stated by the head of the technology department at Telia, Andrius Šemeškevičius. This cable intersects with a cable between Finland and Germany that was previously reported to be damaged.
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According to Telia, the interruption occurred around 10 a.m. on November 17, and was discovered after a sudden loss of communication. Šemeshkevičius added that the damaged cable had been in operation for quite a long time and malfunctions had already occurred, but no cases of breaks were recorded. “These failures are usually associated with shipping, when somewhere in shallow water, not far from the shore, some vessel that has dropped the anchor incorrectly can catch the cable and break it,” Semeskevicius said.
It is noted that the damaged cable intersects with a cable between Finland and Germany, the damage of which became known earlier. “At the moment we see that these cables only intersect in an area of 10 m². Since they were both damaged, it becomes clear that this was not an accidental release of the anchor of one vessel, it could be something more serious,” says a Telia representative. The report also said that due to damage to the cable, the operator’s Internet bandwidth in Lithuania decreased by a third. Communications were restored to bypass the damage, and some clients were transferred to backup lines.
Let us recall that earlier this week the Finnish company Cinia announced damage to the 1,200 km C-Lion1 cable, which connects Helsinki and the German port of Rostock. This cable is expected to take 5 to 15 days to repair. It is noted that the reasons for the damage to the cable “may be different,” and it is possible that the incident arose due to shipping.