Delays in repairing snapped undersea internet cables

If you are struggling with slow internet this week, don’t be too alarmed, it’s not your appliances giving in from load-shedding.

Two major undersea communication cables snapped last week, disrupting the internet across South Africa.

But wait, there’s more; there is only one ship that can repair these cables, and it is attending to another problem off the coast of Kenya.

The West Africa Cable System (WACS) and the South Atlantic Telecommunications Cable number three (SAT-3) are critical for network operators in South Africa, and broke simultaneously in the Congo Canyon, reportedly after a rockfall.

Confirming the incident last week, Openserve said a consortium of partners was working to restore the cables.

Meanwhile, according to Marine Traffic, the Leon Thevenin cable laying ship – the only one authorised to work on Sub-Saharan Africa’s fibre-optic cables – is off the coast of Kenya – the opposite side of the continent from the snapped cables, attending to another job.

Cloudfare’s head of data insight, David Belson, told News 24 that websites hosted in the US or Europe may be slow or not work at all in South Africa because of the broken cables.

The Leon Thevenin works with an onboard remote-controlled submersible that is deployed to retrieve the cable from the sea floor.

The technical team onboard the ship can then assess the scope of work and carry out repairs on the ship.

Experts say more cable breaks can be expected as the number of cables around Africa increases rapidly.

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