When a submarine cable is cut, traffic takes long detours for weeks (sometimes months) until it is repaired, and the remaining links get congested.
Why Cable cut or equipment failure → Effect Traffic crowds onto long detour routes and the remaining links → On screen Ping surges and packet loss for overseas players that last days to weeks
Primary owner External (External) · Also Infra team (Network infrastructure)
Infra team action items
Secure links on other routes, move traffic onto them during an outage.
External action items
Tell overseas players the cause and the expected recovery time, ask the link provider for its repair schedule.
On the graph
Step change · RTT (by overseas country)
Where to look
Find when RTT and loss rose on the per-country graph, match that time against Cloudflare Radar’s internet outage summaries and submarine cable operators’ notices, and check with traceroute whether the route now goes around another continent
Confirmed if
From a certain moment, RTT for a specific overseas region steps up and stays there for days to weeks, with cable outage reports from the same period. The route has switched to an unusually long detour
Ruled out if
Back to normal within a few days with no outage reports: “BGP route changes and convergence” or a problem in the ISP’s segment
Q2 2024 Internet disruption summaryCloudflare Red Sea cables damaged in February 2024 were still under repair in July (conflict zone); the EASSy and Seacom cuts in May were repaired in 19 days
Q1 2024 Internet disruption summaryCloudflare West African cable cuts (March 14) were repaired 3–6 weeks later, with traffic moved to other cables in the meantime