The Seacom cable network, which was damaged last month, was fully repaired over the weekend and all circuits have been restored.
The subsea cable was cut in the Mediterranean Sea in March, along with other cable systems. It’s suspected the break was caused by a ship dragging its anchor.
“Our partner network has informed us that the assigned cable ship worked in optimal weather conditions for the duration of their repairs,” the company said in a statement on Tuesday. “The cable was quickly lifted, the new cable spliced in, tested and re-laid thanks to close coordination between the ship crew and onshore support.”
The outage affected a number of South African Internet service providers that rely on Seacom for international connectivity. At the time, Seacom CEO Mark Simpson said multiple cable systems had been affected by the incident that took a place a few kilometres north of the coast of Egypt.
“We suspect, based on our experience with subsea systems and the nature of the sea area where the cut occurred, that the most likely cause was external aggression to the cable most probably caused by a larger vessel dragging its anchor across the sea bed,” Simpson said.
“Unfortunately, this remains a common cause of damage to cable systems globally, despite our continued efforts to protect the cable with armour, burying, notifications to ships of cable location and exclusion zones.”
A week after the incident, Egyptian authorities arrested three divers suspected of trying to sever the Sea-Me-We 4 cable system. Simpson said it was very unlikely the incidents were connected. — (c) 2013 NewsCentral Media