Q&E North cable: latency up to 2.2× normal, 23 May 2026
What we measured
| Cable | Q&E North |
| Segment | Joss Bay, GB → Ostend, BE |
| Detected | 2026-05-23 13:01 UTC |
| Resolved | 2026-05-23 14:31 UTC |
| Duration | 1h 29m |
| Observed latency | 95.9 ms |
| Baseline | 56.6 ms · 2.17× |
| Increase | +117% |
| Severity | warning |
Who is affected
Countries where Q&E North comes ashore, how much of their submarine diversity this cable represents, and what our measurements into them show.
| Country | Dependence on this cable | Other submarine cables | What the measurements show |
|---|---|---|---|
| Belgium resilience index: 44 · vulnerable |
1 of 4 cables (25% of submarine diversity) | Mercator, Pan European Crossing (UK-Belgium), Tangerine | median 71 ms today vs 67 ms over 30 days (364 routes) - unchanged |
| United Kingdom resilience index: 100 · resilient |
1 of 68 cables (1% of submarine diversity) | 2Africa, Amitie, Apollo +64 more | median 103 ms today vs 74 ms over 30 days (1011 routes) - slower |
Dependence is structural (share of the country's submarine cables), not a traffic share: real traffic distribution across cables is not public.
Path analysis
Traffic kept the same route. Latency rose without a visible path change, which points at congestion or a fault on the existing route rather than a reroute.
Cross-probe verdict. Other measurements did not confirm the event. We treat this as a probable false positive and label it as such.
Timeline
- Alert 2026052302: warning - ratio 2.17x
- Alert #127 improving: 1/3 consecutive OK
- Alert #127 resolved: RTT 95.9ms (baseline 56.57ms), 3 consecutive OK
Detection method
Latency is sampled continuously from our probe network. An alert opens when round-trip time to a monitored endpoint holds above its rolling baseline, and closes automatically once it returns. Full method is described on the methodology page.