Why Kenya is facing internet downtime
3 min read
Faulty cables in the Red Sea causing internet downtime in Kenya and the wider East Africa region
Faulty cables in the Red Sea causing internet downtime in Kenya and the wider East Africa region.
Kenya and the wider East Africa region experienced internet downtime on Sunday with most internet users reporting having a hard time browsing.
According to reports, the internet downtime experienced was attributed to two faulty cables in the Red Sea.
Ben Roberts, the Chief Technology and Innovation Officer reported that three cable system providers were yet to repair the cuts causing the downtime.
According to the CTIO, all sub-sea capacity between East Africa and South Africa have been down.
“Internet to East Africa is severely impaired. All sub-sea capacity between East Africa and South Africa is down, stated Roberts.
Further, Roberts confirmed that there was a fault in the Eastern Africa Submarine System (EASSy) cable and another fault in the Seacom submarine cable.
Interestingly it was also reported that the faults from both cables were observed to have occurred at the same time.
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EASSy is a 10,000-kilometre submarine cable system along the East Coast of Africa, with 9 landing stations in Sudan, Djibouti, Somalia, Kenya, Tanzania, Comoros, Madagascar, Mozambique, and South Africa.
It provides a backhaul system for at least 12 landlocked countries and enables wide coverage in the East African region.
On the other hand, SEACOM, a 17,000 km submarine cable connects South Africa, Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique, Djibouti, France and India.
“EASSy Cable – Fault confirmed, Seacom Cable – Observing Fault that occurred at the same time, 3 cable cuts in Red Sea (Seacom, EIG, AAE1) remain unrepaired,” stated Ben Roberts.
On Sunday, Tanzania was reported to have experienced a total outage in some areas with some users accessing services intermittently.
“The downtime has affected major network channels, but some service providers have managed to offer limited access. For the majority, it is a complete blackout,” a local daily reported.
This comes after another warning of internet outage had been issued to Kenyans on February 26 after a fault was experienced in another cable system.
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