More Internet Outages on the Way? Google and Meta Delay Subsea Cable Plans Due to Sabotage Fears

Why It Matters

The postponement of major subsea cables threatens to exacerbate global bandwidth shortages, increase internet costs and heighten the risk of widespread outages, especially for regions lacking alternative connectivity, thereby impacting cloud services, disaster‑recovery plans and overall digital economy stability.

Summary

Google’s Blue‑Raman and Meta’s 2Africa subsea cable projects have been put on hold as Red Sea instability raises sabotage concerns, forcing operators to suspend construction on key segments linking Europe, Asia and Africa. The security risk has also stalled other planned systems such as India‑Europe‑Xpress, Sea‑Me‑We 6 and Africa‑1, creating a bottleneck in a corridor that carries a large share of global data traffic. Telecom firms are now assessing costly overland alternatives through Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Iraq and seeking possible US Treasury exemptions to negotiate directly with Yemeni authorities. The delays are pushing traffic onto already‑strained routes, raising latency, costs and vulnerability for enterprises and countries with limited cable redundancy.