Internet connectivity suffered a significant setback across several East African nations on Sunday, attributed to faults detected in the East African Submarine Cable System (EASSy) and SEACOM cables, as reported by Internet monitoring groups NetBlocks and Cloudflare.
NetBlocks, in a post on X, detailed the impact, indicating that Tanzania and the French Island of Mayotte experienced severe disruptions, with reports indicating moderate impacts in Mozambique and Malawi.
“Network data show a disruption to Internet connectivity in and around multiple East African countries,” NetBlocks wrote.
Cloudflare supported these findings, identifying ongoing connectivity issues in Tanzania, Malawi, Mozambique, and Madagascar.
In response to the disruptions, Safaricom, Kenya’s leading telecom operator, implemented redundancy measures to maintain service continuity, albeit with anticipated reductions in internet speeds.
Renowned for its extensive customer base, Safaricom is actively working towards fully restoring the affected cables to normal operation.
This incident follows a series of outages in March affecting various West African nations and South Africa, disrupting digital communication and business activities.
The March outages were linked to damages on four subsea cables off the west coast of Africa: the West Africa Cable System, MainOne, South Atlantic 3, and ACE sea cables, crucial for telecommunications data transmission across the continent.
Chris Wood, CEO of the West Indian Ocean Cable Company, highlighted the significant costs associated with repairing such critical infrastructure.
He estimated collective repair expenses for the four affected cables at approximately $8 million, emphasizing that restoring a single subsea cable could require between $1 million and $2 million, depending on the extent of damage.
