Iran war raises fear of subsea cable, internet disruptions; govt seeks contingency plans

India has begun preparing for potential disruptions to its internet infrastructure as the escalating Iran conflict threatens critical subsea cable routes across the Persian Gulf and Red Sea—two of the world’s most vital digital corridors.

At a recent meeting, Department of Telecommunications (DoT) officials asked telecom and subsea cable operators to draw up contingency plans, as the conflict could delay new deployments, disrupt maintenance, and put India–Europe connectivity at risk, sources told Moneycontrol. Operators were also asked to assess potential risks and timelines that could impact upcoming cable rollouts.

Industry executives, speaking on condition of anonymity, said companies have sought government support to engage with Iran to safeguard subsea cable infrastructure.

Nearly 95 percent of global international data flows through undersea cables. India currently hosts 17 such cables across 14 landing stations in Mumbai, Chennai, Cochin, Tuticorin, and Trivandrum.

The Red Sea and Strait of Hormuz remain key risk zones. Damage to cables in the Red Sea last year took months to repair, highlighting the fragility of these routes. Since multiple global cables pass through these regions, any disruption could affect not just India’s connectivity but also traffic between the Middle East and Europe.

Such disruptions can delay financial transactions, impact e-commerce, cause social media outages, and affect IT services and global capability centres (GCCs), executives noted.

“While a complete internet blackout is unlikely, India remains exposed to congestion and performance issues due to its reliance on limited routes and landing points. Strengthening resilience will require diversifying cable landings, expanding eastward connectivity, and building domestic repair capabilities with policy support,” Amajit Gupta, Group CEO and MD of Lightstorm, told Moneycontrol.

Lightstorm owns and operates subsea cable assets in the Pacific region, covering routes such as Australia and Japan. It also carries traffic on other operators’ cables inlcuding those owned by Tata Communications as a reseller.

India’s internet traffic is also unevenly distributed, with about two-thirds routed through Mumbai and the rest through Chennai. While traffic can be diverted eastward during disruptions, such rerouting often results in slower speeds and congestion, he said.

During the meeting, concerns were also raised about domestic vulnerabilities, particularly the clustering of landing stations in Mumbai’s Versova and Chennai’s Siruseri, which creates single points of failure.

“Given India’s long coastline, there is a need to further diversify the geographic distribution of landing stations,” Gupta said.

Gulf, Red Sea chokepoints

Cables are concentrated in narrow passages like the Strait of Hormuz, which is the entry to the Persian Gulf, and the Bab-el-Mandeb, which is 2,000 km away and connects the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean.

The war has turned both the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea into high-risk zones for global subsea infrastructure.

Tehran, which has almost choked the strait, is laying claim to Hormuz and  Iran-backed Houthis are now threatening to block Bab-el-Mandeb.

While the Red Sea had already been facing disruptions, the escalation in the Gulf has created a second chokepoint.

Key cable projects stalled or at risk

At the centre of the disruption is the 2Africa ecosystem, particularly its Gulf extension, 2Africa Pearls.

This Meta-led project, designed to connect India with the West Asia and onward to Europe, has effectively come to a halt after Alcatel Submarine Networks declared force majeure.

Though large portions of the cable have already been laid, they remain unconnected, indefinitely pushing back the project’s 2026 launch as the conflict prevents final integration.

The disruption extends beyond a single system. The SEA-ME-WE 6 (SMW6) cable — one of the most critical next-generation links between Asia and Europe — has been pushed into uncertainty.

Its Gulf extension, which was to pass through the Strait of Hormuz and integrate with terrestrial routes across Saudi Arabia, faces indefinite delays.

At the same time, existing systems such as Airtel’s SEA-ME-WE 4 (SMW4) and I-ME-WE (IMEWE), along with Flag Telecom’s FALCON network, have already been hit by cuts near Jeddah.

Risky business

Tata Communications’ TGN-Gulf and Airtel’s Africa Pearls systems also remain exposed to greater risk.

Several upcoming cables in this corridor, including Reliance Jio’s India-Europe-Express and India-Asia-Express, as well as Google’s Dhivaru, are facing uncertainty.

Similarly, the Fibre in Gulf (FIG) system, backed by regional operators, is at risk as the Persian Gulf—once viewed as a safer alternative to the Red Sea—has itself turned into a conflict zone. The situation is more severe for the WorldLink Transit Cable Project, whose business case depended on the Gulf as a stable corridor; that assumption has now collapsed, rendering the project commercially unviable.

Maintenance freeze raises outage risks

Beyond delaying new deployments, the US-Israel war on Iran has disrupted subsea cable maintenance.

Both the Red Sea and the Strait of Hormuz have become no-go zones for repair vessels, making it impossible to fix existing faults caused by anchors, accidents, or conflict-related damage.

It has effectively locked in outages and reduced available capacity across some of the world’s busiest data routes. While past incidents in the Red Sea have taken months to repair, current timelines could extend indefinitely.

Europe connectivity under pressure

India’s connectivity to Europe, critical for cloud services, enterprise traffic, and emerging AI workloads, relies heavily on the two subsea corridors.

“With both routes simultaneously disrupted, India faces a dual risk of reduced bandwidth availability and increased latency as traffic is rerouted through longer or more congested paths,” an industry executive said.

“India’s fast-growing data centre ecosystem risks disruption if connectivity constraints emerge, especially amid geopolitical tensions around Iran” Parag Kar, an independent telecom analyst, told Moneycontrol.

With global tech firms investing heavily in India’s data centre ecosystem, risks to subsea cable infrastructure can impact performance as well as long-term investment, Kar said.

India’s subsea infrastructure will be central to unlocking the next phase of digital growth, powering cloud, AI, and global connectivity, Vinish Bawa, partner and telecom sector leader at PwC India told Moneycontrol.

The timing of the disruption is challenging for India, which is positioning itself as a major data centre and digital infrastructure hub.

Reliable, high-capacity subsea connectivity is central to that ambition.

Companies such as Meta, Google, and Amazon are increasingly exploring alternative routes that bypass the West Asia, including overland Eurasian corridors and Arctic subsea systems. However, these options are years away from becoming operational, leaving a near-term gap in both capacity and network resilience.

Long-term resilience will depend on addressing key structural gaps, including the concentration of cable landings, maintenance capabilities and fragmented approval processes that cause delays, along with limited participation across the broader subsea ecosystem.

“Strengthening these areas through more diversified landing points, faster repair response, and the development of a domestic ecosystem will be crucial to sustaining growth and advancing India’s ambition of becoming a global digital hub,” Bawa said.