Seacom, which claims ownership of Africa’s most extensive ICT data infrastructure, apparently experienced an outage on its subsea cable system over the weekend.
The disruption is affecting the segment of the cable that runs from Mombasa in Kenya to Zafarana in Egypt. The outage has apparently affected some of Seacoms’ clients’ businesses across East and Southern Africa.
However, some reports indicate that other cables in the Red Sea area, where the disruption is believed to have taken place, also appear to have been impacted.
The company has not been able to cite the cause of the disruption. It points out that, while it has been working to ensure the continuity of its services, “the location of the cable break is significant due to its geopolitical sensitivity and ongoing tensions, making it a challenging environment for maintenance and repair operations”.
Seacom is still carrying traffic on its own cable between Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique and South Africa, for both transmission and IP services. All other IP-based services destined for Europe and other regions were automatically rerouted via Seacom’s alternative routes on Equiano, PEACE and WACS cable systems and supported by Seacom’s diverse terrestrial infrastructure. It's not yet clear what restoration timelines are likely.
Seacom launched Africa’s first broadband submarine cable system along the continent’s Eastern and Southern coasts in 2009.
