Jan. 31 (Bloomberg) -- India and countries across the Middle East experienced slow Internet connections and disruption to international calls to the U.S. and Europe after two submarine cable systems in the Mediterranean Sea were cut yesterday.

Repairs to the break, which may have been caused by a ship's anchor near Alexandria, northern Egypt, will start on Feb. 4, a spokesman for Flag Telecom Group Ltd., which operates one of the cables, said by phone from Mumbai today. Customers are being provided with alternatives through other cables, he said.

The cable breaks have cut capacity by more than half for some Web access and telephones companies in the affected regions. They carry 70 percent of voice traffic to the West, according to Orascom Telecom Holding SAE, the biggest mobile-phone company in the Middle East and North Africa. Stock trading in Egypt and phone calls from as far away as the U.S. have been disrupted.

``Everyone is trying to absorb the shock, and is trying to deal with it'' by using alternatives, said Joseph Metry, network supervisor at Orascom Telecom.

The two cables are 400 meters (1,312 feet) apart and the second is operated by SEA-ME-WE-4, according to Emirates Integrated Telecommunications Co., which is United Arab Emirates' second-biggest mobile-phone company and is known as du.

``Flag and SEA-ME-WE4 have activated their emergency repair process,'' du said in an e-mailed statement today. ``Given the proximity of the two systems, it is likely that one ship will do both repairs.''

Indian Call Centers

Flag is delivering a better service today, though services aren't running as usual, the Flag spokesman said. Du said it has re-routed international outbound voice traffic on other available routes and secured more capacity for Internet access.

``The majority of our IT companies, BPOs and call centers which are using the Atlantic route for dialing to the U.S. East Coast have been badly affected,'' Rajesh Chharia, president of the Internet Service Provider Association of India, said by telephone from New Delhi today. Flag Telecom's cable ``has lost 50 to 60 percent capacity,'' he said.

Customers will notice some congestion during peak hours, and accessing overseas Web sites will still be slow, said Joseph Metry, network supervisor at Orascom Telecom. Egyptian national calls and Web sites weren't affected, he said. Traffic is being carried through another cable in Suez and Telecom Egypt is trying to boost capacity from 25 percent to 75 percent, Metry said.

``Now, I believe, all the Internet service providers have partial access to the Internet, but at a quarter of their capacities,'' Metry said.

Trading Hit

``Our trading capacity has been hurt by the slow Internet connection,'' Mohamed Ashmawy, a trader at Commercial International Brokerage Co., said via phone from Cairo. ``We don't have access to some trading platforms, so we can't execute client orders through the usual messaging systems.''

Flag is owned by Reliance Communications Ltd., India's second-largest wireless carrier, whose chairman is billionaire Anil Ambani. SEA-ME-WE-4 is owned by a group of 16 international telecommunications companies, according to its Web site.

``Only 10 to 15 percent of our connectivity with the international gateway faced problems,'' Anil Kumar Jain, deputy director general of state-run Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd., India's largest telecommunications carrier, said by telephone from New Delhi today.

Phone Company

Customers of San Antonio-based AT&T Inc., the biggest U.S. phone company, have been affected, spokesman Michael Coe said yesterday. AT&T is part of the group that owns one of the cables, Coe said.

Some customers of New York-based Verizon Communications Inc., the second-biggest U.S. phone company, were affected by the cable break, spokeswoman Linda Laughlin said yesterday. Verizon also co-owns one of the cables as part of a group of carriers, and the companies pay regular maintenance fees that will cover the cost to repair the cable, Laughlin said.

Coe and Laughlin said yesterday they didn't know how many clients were affected.

Bahrain Telecommunications Co., which holds the franchise to provide all of Bahrain's public telecommunications, said in an e- mailed statement yesterday that ``Internet services will still be available but at a degraded speed during peak hours.''

Egypt's Ministry of Telecommunications said yesterday it formed an emergency team to bring back the service.

To contact the reporters on this story: Camilla Hall in London at chall24@bloomberg.net; Bibhudatta Pradhan in New Delhi at bpradhan@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: January 31, 2008 09:54 EST