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Monday, Feb 04, 2008
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FICCI survey: not much loss due to the underwater cable damage

Sandeep Joshi

NEW DELHI: Last week’s underwater cable damage in the Mediterranean sea connecting India, its neighbours and some Gulf countries with Europe and the U.S. had no major impact on the Indian information technology and IT-enabled services industry, according to a survey conducted by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry.

Despite the flutter among internet users in different parts of the world due to the damaged undersea cables, the country’s IT and ITES industry was running as usual. Work in a majority of the IT and ITES firms, accounting for nearly 70 per cent of the industry, was not affected. For the rest, there are varying degrees of disruption and they have put in place contingency plans to deal with the existing situation, the survey reveals.

It says there was no substantial loss as the firms were using robust technology and had put in place a redundancy plan that allowed them to pick up extra bandwidth from multiple services providers. While multiple routes of connection and tie-ups with alternate services providers saved the day for several companies, a few cases of severe work restriction were reported. “Most high technology-oriented companies felt no impact of the disruption, while medium and small-sized companies with a single source of bandwidth supplier were adversely affected. There were companies who have adopted flexible work schedules for their employees and they faced no problem while operating from office, but people working from home faced difficulties due to the slowdown in the home internet connection,” it adds.

However, companies are now planning to invest in multi-layered redundancy structures so that in case of any adverse development in the future, the functioning of their processes is not affected.

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