Increased network latency on traffic routes through the Middle East

Starting at 05:45 UTC on 06 September 2025, network traffic traversing through the Middle East may experience increased latency due to undersea fiber cuts in the Red Sea. Network traffic continues to not be interrupted as Microsoft has rerouted traffic through alternate network paths. We do expect higher latency on some traffic that previously traversed through the Middle East until the undersea fiber cuts are fully addressed. Network traffic that does not traverse through the Middle East is not impacted. We will not have a complete return to typical latencies through the Middle East in the near term, as this is the expected state until repairs can be made in the Red Sea over the coming weeks. Our engineers continue to work in parallel on other methods to optimize latency. With several days of stable operations now, we will remove this awareness banner from the Azure Status page on 10 September 2025 and continue further communications via Azure Service Health.