Telecom Egypt CEO Mohamed al-Nawawi said Wednesday that the Armed Forces have arrested the saboteur accused of cutting an underwater internet cable earlier that day, causing internet services to drop by 60 percent.
According to reports, the SMW4 maritime cable was cut at 8 am around 750 meters north of Alexandria, which slowed internet service in Egypt and other countries.
But industry officials said they were hard at work to get services up and running.
“[Internet services] will be back 100 percent on Thursday morning,” he said. “We are using alternative feeds.”
Meanwhile, Communications Minister Atef Helmy told Turkish Anadolu news agency on Wednesday that the “internet crisis will be resolved in 20 hours,” adding, "There will be gradual improvement in the service within the coming hours.”
Nawawi said Telecom Egypt would bear all repair costs for the cable and another that was cut Friday.
Link.net, another ADSL provider, said the incident will impact internet speed for all service providers.
