UAE And Regional Internet Users Report Outages Amid Red Sea Cable Cuts

Internet users in the UAE and other countries in the Middle East reported outage or slowdown of services due to a series of cable outages in the Red Sea.

People in both the country and the region took to social media to report challenges in accessing websites and apps and TV streaming.

According to Downdetector, reported locations include Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, Al Ain, Ajman, Ras Al Khaimah, Fujairah, Jebel Ali, and Umm Al Quwain.

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Most of the reported problems were related to landline internet, TV streaming, and mobile internet, it said.

“Internet is stuttering, gaming is impossible, YouTube videos don't run smoothly,” said UAE resident Muhammad Yousuf on Downdetector.

“Extremely slow internet today all across Dubai. Multiple friends have this issue in their homes,” said another Dubai resident.

“I call my mother in my home country on Saturday evening, but I couldn't. I came to know later that there was some cable outage issue in the Red Sea,” said Waseem Ahmed, a Sharjah resident.

“What is happening with the internet today!? It's extremely slow. Happening across the whole of Dubai!”, said Magaluf, an X user.

According to Downdetector, users of the social media platform X reported outages throughout Saturday.

“Huge packet losses. Goodbye streaming or gaming or anything like that :) Maybe it's time to read some books,” said KuniMaster69, a Reddit user.

NetBlocks, a watchdog organisation that monitors cybersecurity and Internet, added that internet disruption were observed on UAE telecom networks, resulting in slow speeds and intermittent access.

It added that engineers are working to resolve the issue which is impacting many countries.

Meanwhile, Microsoft said its cloud computing platform Azure is witnessing increased network latency on traffic routes across the Middle East.

“Starting 05.45 UTC (9.45am UAE time) on September 6, 2025, network traffic traversing through the Middle East may experience increased latency due to undersea fiber cuts in the Red Sea. Network traffic is not interrupted as Microsoft has rerouted traffic through alternate network paths,” the US technology giant said.

“We do expect higher latency on some traffic that previously traversed through the Middle East. Network traffic that does not traverse through the Middle East is not impacted. We'll continue to provide daily updates, or sooner if conditions change,” it said in a statement on its website.

Khaleej Times has reached out to local telecom services providers for a statement about the restoration of services.

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