Fault disrupts internet cable to East Africa

  1. Posted on Thursday 8 July 2010 - 12:00
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    Nangayi Guyson, AfricaNews reporter in Kampala, Uganda Credit: BBC
    The East African internet Seacom cable which was set to bring high speed net access to East African countries has been disrupted by a fault, Seacom said. The firm said it had been working since the fault was first reported on the 5 July to find alternative methods to route internet traffic, including alternative cables.
    AFRICA- fault disrupts internet cable connecting E. Africa
    The undersea cable which was completed in July 2009, promised to bring down the cost of a connection and boost internet access across the region but now is facing fault problems which Seacom said it has "initiated emergency repairs", which may take eight days.

    According to Seacom, the exact cause of the fault was "still being investigated", but was thought to originate off the Kenyan coast and he restoration solutions are now being actively implemented.

    This unexpected failure affects traffic towards both India and Europe. Traffic within Africa is not affected," Seacom said in a statement.

    The fault has so far mostly affected home users, as many businesses in the region have back-up plans for such faults.
    It is the second major outage the cable has experienced since it went live.

    Outages of this kind happen periodically. A cable cut in the Mediterranean in 2008 temporarily disrupted up to 70% of internet traffic to Egypt and 60% to India.

    The company has said a ship will be dispatched to repair the cable.

    "Whilst the repair process itself will only take a few hours, the overall process may last a minimum of six to eight days," it said.

    "The actual duration is unpredictable due to external factors such as transit time of the ship, weather conditions and time to locate the cable. For this reason, the estimated duration of this repair remains uncertain."

    The cable, finished in 2009, connects South Africa, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda and Mozambique to Europe and Asia.

    However, another Main One cable linking Africa to Europe was switched on.

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