East Africa left without Internet

With African trunk cables connecting Europe, Asia and various regions of Africa, all the time there are some problems. We barely had time to complete 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 we see, only six months later, problems began.

All this was “brewed” as early as July 5, when a large number of East African providers, both large and small, recorded irregularities in data transmission, that is, it became clear that not all was well with the backbone.
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Most of the providers switched to the usual African way of connecting - satellite communications. But, as you know, this is not the cheapest and fast connection in the world. As a result, almost half of the Internet users in East Africa lost access to the Network.

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 not to find it). The leadership of Seacom today in a panic quit announced that the reason was 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 bathyscaph, and replace the damaged section of the cable with the whole. At best, everything will work only on July 22, at least that is how the management of the highway claims. Well, while the poor residents of East Africa eat the perpetrators 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 a disconnection of the whole region from the Network.

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