Eassy and Seacom submarine internet cables connecting South Africa and Kenya have reportedly stopped working since Sunday, May 12, 2024. This incident has resulted in internet service disruptions across several East African countries. The cause of the incident is yet to be established.
According to reports, a Seacom cable has developed a disruption in its system. This has caused a stoppage of internet services.
Eassy, through Wiocc, an investor in Eassy, disclosed that the cable system experienced a cut between South Africa and Mozambique, where the cable runs along the continent’s east coast.
From South Africa to East Africa
All subsea capacity between East Africa and South Africa is reportedly down. Tanzania and Mayotte were the most affected while South Africa and Mozambique felt little or no impact. South Africa uses the Equiano and Wacs system whose cables use the West African coast.
Internet users took to social media platforms all day to complain about the slow internet in the few areas where it was still functioning and others had to use VPN. Safaricom took to X to assure its subscribers that plans to rectify the situation were underway and that there was no cause for alarm.
Additionally, 4 subsea telcos cables went offline around the same time on Thursday, 14 March 2024. The disruptions were discovered to have occurred off the coast of Cote d’Ivoire, near Abidjan. The 4 are ACE, WACS, SAT-3, and MainOne. ACE repairs were completed in mid-April while works on the West Africa Cable System (WACS) cable concluded at the end of April.
Repairs to the Sat-3 cable were completed in early April. The Equinix-owned MainOne cable repair work is estimated to be concluded in mid-May. They are said to have been knocked down by a submarine landslide.
“We have experienced an outage on one of the undersea cables that deliver internet traffic in and out of the country,” Safaricom said in a notice.
“We have since activated redundancy measures to minimise service interruption and keep you connected as we await the full restoration of the cable.”
Repeated disruptions since March have caused massive losses in businesses to the tune of millions in the two-day ordeal. The Internet submarine cables carry over 90% of intercontinental data traffic. All hands were on deck to ensure the damaged cables were back on track. The internet connectivity is now fully back in the region.
