Underground Cables and Other Stories

Update: it’s not just one cable. Been chasing this until I got confirmation:

Following Finnish media reports that an unexplained failure of an undersea telecommunications cable has disrupted communication services between Finland and Germany, Telia’s Chief Technology Officer Andrius Šemeškevičius says that the communications cable between Lithuania and Sweden was also damaged.

“The cable was cut on Sunday morning, at around 10:00. The systems immediately reported that we had lost the connection. Further investigation and clarification took place, and it turned out that it was damaged,” Šemeškevičius told the LRT TV Important Hour programme.

According to him, Telia transmits the internet connection to Lithuania through three cables, which means that the internet bandwidth was reduced by one-third due to the incident. However, the connection was restored to users by bypassing the fault.

Meanwhile, data transmission between Finland and Germany was completely interrupted. The nearly 1,200-kilometre-long cable is the only direct link of its kind between Finland and Central Europe and runs alongside other important pieces of infrastructure, including gas pipelines and electricity cables.

The mystery deepens. But dragging an anchor could do this. Why would you drop anchor in the middle of a crossing? Short of an emergency?