Maintenance on fibre cables in Egypt could cause slow Internet access in South Africa on Wednesday.
Seacom manages a 17 000km undersea fibre broadband cable that connects to places along Africa’s eastern coastline such as Mombasa in Kenya and Mtunzini in South Africa. The cable also has connecting links to Europe and parts of North Africa.
Many Internet service providers in South Africa use the Seacom cable to help provide international data capacity to their customers.
But maintenance on the cable could cause slower than average Internet speeds in South Africa, service provider MWeb warned on Wednesday.
“Seacom are carrying out maintenance today which should continue until 10pm this evening. This may potentially cause slow browsing and downloads during peak times,” MWeb told customers on its Facebook page on Wednesday.
MWeb said it has secured capacity on an alternative route during the Seacom maintenance. But it said that because it is “operating at reduced international capacity for the day” users could still experience reduced speeds.
Meanwhile, Seacom has further explained what the maintenance in Egypt entails.
“Seacom has a planned maintenance activity that has been scheduled on 29 April to repair a shunt fault near Abu Talat,” Linda Carter, who is the head of marketing at Seacom’s shared services, said in an e-mailed statement.
“All unprotected Seacom transmission services will be impacted for an estimated 12-hour period on this date. Seacom’s IP platform, and customers on that platform, as well as customers who have taken restoration services from Seacom during this period will still be up and running,” Carter said. — Fin24
