 |
| FILE: Fiber optic cable emerges from the sea in Liberia, the cable connects South Africa and west African countries with France |
By Renee Bonorchis, Johannesburg – SOUTH AFRICA
Some Internet users
across sub-Saharan Africa are stuck with slow service after two undersea cables
to the continent’s western coast were damaged.
The so-called WACS and SAT3/WASC cable systems are in the Atlantic Ocean
and connect South Africa and many other African countries to Europe, according
to Openserve, a unit of South Africa’s biggest fixed-line telecommunications
provider, Telkom SA SOC Ltd.
One break is near Libreville in Gabon and the other is in the vicinity
of Luanda, Angola, Openserve said in an emailed statement.
In some countries, consumers and businesses can’t send emails or make
cross-border phone calls. With parts of the cabling lying deep underwater, it’s
unclear as to when full connectivity will be restored.
MTN Group Ltd., Africa’s biggest telecommunications provider, apologized
to customers in Nigeria and Ivory Coast for slow Internet speeds and
difficulties in accessing data services. The company, in newspaper
advertisements and via Twitter, said the problem was beyond its control.
“This situation is affecting all
operators and customers in the region,” a Johannesburg-based spokeswoman for
MTN said in an emailed statement on Friday. “MTN has already begun to restore
traffic through other channels and will continue to find alternative routes of
connectivity until the situation is resolved.”
South Africa-based Internet Solutions,
a unit of Dimension Data Holdings Plc, told customers in Ghana a “major”
service impact had started on Thursday afternoon and said it didn’t know when
services would be restored. - Bloomberg
No comments:
Post a Comment