By Xinhua,
Cairo : The Egyptian authorities said Internet services have restored more than 80 percent on Sunday, two days after several undersea cables in the Mediterranean Sea were cut.
An official source of the Egyptian Ministry of Communications and Information Technology confirmed that the Internet capability has been gradually recovered in the day, the state MENA news agency reported.
On Friday, up to 80 percent of Internet services and call centers in Egypt were cut after the submarine cables were damaged south of Italy for unknown reason.
Egyptian Minister of Communications and Information Technology Tareq Kamel ordered on Friday to set up an operation room to follow up the repair works, which are carried out by an international marine cable repair company.
The operation room said Sunday it has not received complaints from financial institutions, banks or stock markets about grave losses caused by the Internet outage, said MENA.
Terming the Internet cables cut as “unprecedented,” Kamel said Saturday that six undersea Internet cables were cut south of Italy, with three of them linking Italy to the Middle East while the remaining three link Italy to Libya, Malta and Tunisia.
Egypt switched its Internet service to a backup route via southeast Asia and satellite after the cut.
It is the second time in 2008 that Egypt witnessed a large scale Internet services cut due to submarine cable damage.
In January, Internet services and international calls were also partly cut in Egypt, along with a number of countries in the Middle East and South Asia.