The UAE, known for having the world’s fastest internet speeds, faced an unusual disruption over the weekend as a temporary slowdown left residents frustrated during the three-day holiday.
The dip in connectivity, caused by multiple undersea cable cuts in the Red Sea, impacted users across the Middle East, including in major UAE cities such as Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, Ajman, Al Ain, Ras Al Khaimah, Fujairah, Jebel Ali, and Umm Al Quwain. Complaints flooded social media platforms, with users reporting buffering videos, interrupted downloads, sluggish browsing, and unstable online gaming sessions.
For Dubai-based gamer Ahmed Al Mansoori, the slowdown ruined carefully laid weekend plans. “I was trying to stream my gameplay to friends online, but the video kept freezing and my voice chat kept cutting out,” he said. Despite rebooting his console and router and running multiple speed tests, Ahmed said nothing worked. “It was like the internet had just given up on me. My whole weekend plan went down the drain.”
Remote workers also struggled with the outage. Abu Dhabi resident Elizabeth Mark said her scheduled video call with colleagues in the UK turned into a stressful experience. “Every few minutes, the call would disconnect. I had to keep reconnecting, and it really disrupted the flow of the meeting,” she said.
Even casual users felt the pinch. Khalid Saeed from Sharjah said he had hoped to relax with a movie but instead found his streaming service repeatedly buffering. “It was frustrating, especially on my day off. I just wanted to unwind, but the internet made it impossible,” he added.
According to monitoring site Downdetector, most complaints in the UAE were linked to landline internet, TV streaming, and mobile networks.
Microsoft confirmed that the slowdown was linked to undersea fiber cable cuts in the Red Sea. “Starting 05.45 UTC (9.45 am UAE time) on September 6, 2025, network traffic traversing through the Middle East may experience increased latency due to undersea fiber cuts,” the company said in a statement. It added that traffic had been rerouted through alternate network paths to minimize disruptions, but higher latency was expected until repairs were completed.
While the rerouting ensured there was no complete outage, the slowdown highlighted the region’s vulnerability to undersea cable disruptions—critical infrastructure that carries most of the world’s internet traffic.
For now, authorities and service providers have not provided a specific timeline for full restoration. In the meantime, UAE residents are hoping that their country’s reputation for high-speed internet will be swiftly restored, so that work, play, and weekend downtime can once again run seamlessly.
