East Africa Left Without Internet

With African trunk cables connecting Europe, Asia and various regions of Africa, some kind of problems happen all the time. We barely managed to finish building the Main One highway, which connected the West African region with Europe, as something happened on the East African Internet highway. It was laid at the end of 2009, and as you can see, only six months later the problems began.

All this “brewed” as early as July 5, when a large number of East African providers, both large and small, recorded violations in data transmission, that is, it became clear that not everything was in order with the backbone.

Most providers have switched to the usual connection path for Africa - satellite communications. But, as you know, this is not the cheapest and fastest connection in the world. As a result, almost half of East African Internet users lost access to the Web.

Seacom, the operator of Internet backbone cables in this region, began to look for problems, and only recently found the source of the problem (it would be better if it did not). Seacom executives dismissed in a panic today stating that the reason was in damage to the deepest segment of the main line, which is located at a depth of 4.7 kilometers.

In order to eliminate the problem, they will now lower the robotic bathyscaphe, and replace the damaged cable section with a whole one. In the best case, everything will work only on July 22, at least, as the management of the highway claims. Well, while the poor inhabitants of East Africa feast on the culprits, they will sit without high-speed Internet.

After some time, they promise to put into operation several more highways, after which damage to one cable will not lead to the disconnection of the whole region from the Network.

Here is the original source of the news (English) and another source (Russian).