Subsea Cable Breaks Sever Internet Connectivity Across South Africa

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Subsea Cable Breaks Sever Internet Connectivity Across South Africa

By CircleID Reporter
March 14, 2024, 10:37 am PDT Views: 6,216 Add Comment

Multiple subsea cable breaks have significantly disrupted internet connectivity across South Africa, affecting a wide range of internet and cloud service providers and leaving thousands of users disconnected.

The breakdowns have led to intermittent connectivity issues for customers of providers like Vodacom and have also disrupted services such as Microsoft Azure and Office 365, impacting both personal and business users in the region.

Vodacom acknowledged the issue on social media, stating that the undersea cable failures are impacting network providers across South Africa, including their services. Microsoft also reported increased network latency and packet drops, attributing the problems to multiple fiber cable disruptions along both the West and East coasts of Africa.

The exact cause of the cable breaks remains undisclosed. However, the situation is exacerbated by ongoing cable cuts in the Red Sea. Seacom, a subsea cable operator, has recently faced a service-affecting outage in the Red Sea and is awaiting permits to commence repairs on its damaged submarine cable.

By CircleID Reporter

CircleID’s internal staff reporting on news tips and developing stories. Do you have information the professional Internet community should be aware of? Contact us.

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