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The cause of the damage is currently unknown
Countries in East and Southern Africa are currently suffering from an internet outage caused by faults along numerous submarine cables.
Cloudflare Radar, a website that monitors internet outages, has confirmed that Tanzania is one of the worst affected countries, with traffic stooping to 30% of normal levels.Ben Roberts, Group CTIO at African network infrastructure specialist Liquid Intelligent Technologies posted to X (formerly known as Twitter) that “Internet to East Africa is severely impaired”.
“All subsea capacity between East Africa and South Africa is down. EASSy Cable – Fault confirmed Seacom Cable – Observing Fault that occurred at same time. 3 cable cuts in Red Sea (Seacom, EIG, AAE1) remain unrepaired.”
The affected cables appear to have been damaged somewhere between South Africa and Mozambique.According to Chris Wood, group CEO of the West Indian Ocean Cable Company, an investor in the EASSy cable, “a cable repair ship based in Cape Town has been mobilised and will sail on Tuesday morning.”
Its me again. Internet to East Africa is severely impaired. All sub sea capacity between East Africa and South Africa is down.
EASSy Cable – Fault confirmed
Seacom Cable – Observing Fault that occurred at same time.
3 cable cuts in Red Sea (Seacom, EIG, AAE1) remain unrepaired.
— Ben Roberts 🇬🇧🇰🇪 (@benliquidkenya) May 12, 2024
Travelling to the site of the cable damage will take three days and the repair time will be dependent on many factors including the weather, sea conditions, and the extent of the damage, which is still unknown.
Kenyan operator Airtel Kenya is among those suffering service disruption as a result of the damage, as are the operators’ rivals Telkom Kenya and Safaricom.
“We are still working with undersea fibre cable team to have them resolve the issue,” said Airtel Kenya, in a statement this morning.
The incident is the second significant submarine cable break in Africa this year. In March, four submarine cables situated on the West Coast of Africa – WACS, Sat-3, Ace, and MainOne – were damaged near the Ivory Coast which caused widespread issues across the continent. Response to the damage was fast, although there has been no official announcement that all of the affected cables have been fully repaired.
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