DUBAI • UAE telecom firm du said yesterday that its Internet and telephone services were largely back to normal after four submarine cables it relies on were cut over the past two weeks.

"Our Internet access is almost back to normal ... and data services are 100 percent restored," Mahesh Jaishankar, executive director for business development and marketing, told reporters.

du, one of two telecommunications firms in the Gulf Arab state, had to use a terrestrial cable across Saudi Arabia to connect to a submerged cable in the Red Sea after a looped cable in the Gulf waters was cut in two points, off Dubai and off Iran's Bandar Abbas, du officials said in a briefing.

The cable is run by Indian-owned FLAG Telecom. The other two cables, off Alexandria in Egypt, were cut on January 23, affecting the speed of services as traffic for du and many other service providers in the region.

The combination of the faults led to disruptions in the firm's Internet services and international telephone calls on Friday.

du was given no no official explanation from the authorities or the firms that run the cable grids about the reason behind the cut, but officials said the usual reason was ship anchors. "Let's call it an educated guess based on previous experience," said Khaled Tabbara, executive director for carrier relations.

Tabbara said that vessels faced by rough seas drop their anchors to avoid drifting and at times drag cables for hundreds of metres causing them to snap.

The International Cable Protection Committee, an association of 86 submarine cable operators dedicated to safeguarding undersea cables, has declined to speculate on the cause of the breaches, saying investigations were underway.

Jaishankar said the two cables in the Gulf were expected to be repaired within 10 days and those in the Mediterranean would take about 14 days, according to estimates by the firms that manage the grids.