There is no need to lose your cool over that snail-paced internet connection of yours. It is not your gadget’s fault, nor is it the wonky electricity or your service provider’s shenanigans. The word from the government is that an undersea internet cable has snapped, off the coast of the Democratic Republic of Congo, leaving us all hanging.
By Lezeth Khoza
Feeling like tearing your hair out because the internet is crawling at a snail’s pace, making you seethe with anger and point fingers at those pesky power outages? Don’t lose your cool just yet…
The problem goes a lot deeper than that.
The government has said it was anticipated that South Africans would have a slow internet connection as a result of the breakage of the West Africa Cable System (WACS) and South Atlantic Telecommunications Cable number 3 (SAT-3) near the coast of the Democratic Republic of Congo. This is said to be caused by a rock fall at the Congo Canyon.
The Department of Communications and Digital Technologies (DCDT) has confirmed to The Telegram that two undersea cables have been ruptured.
“The Department is aware of the WACS and SAT-3 undersea cables that are reported to have snapped on 06 August 2023 in the Congo Canyon in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the impact of this on internet connectivity in South Africa.
“The department has also noted the projected time it will take to fix the cables and the proactive steps taken by Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to temporarily reroute traffic through other cables where capacity exists,” said acting Head of Communications Frans Mthombeni.
He commended the government for preventing a complete shutdown of connection saying, “the decision to encourage investment in multi-submarines in South Africa was strategically intentional to ensure redundancy as mitigation against a complete shutdown of internet connectivity in SA.”
Mthombeni said the government welcomed the arrival of cables on both the east and west coasts, as well as the installation of multiple cables. The purpose of these cables is to increase capacity, ensure backup options, and facilitate connectivity between neighbouring countries through intra-Africa traffic and cross-border connections. The specific cables mentioned are 2Africa and Equiano.
“Minister Mondli Gungubele acknowledged that the landing of more undersea cables additional to the current eight, will go a long way towards exponentially improving capacity to the digital ecosystem in the country. The department will continue encouraging investment in digital infrastructure to enable national and international connectivity,” Mthombeni explained.
Many internet users have been facing issues with slow internet speeds and certain websites not functioning properly. Popular platforms like TikTok and Netflix have also been affected. This has caused significant frustration for users, including Glen Mudzusi, a student and job seeker who recently encountered difficulties while attempting to complete an online test for a job application.
“I did not know about the issue until I had to write a test for a job application. The network started acting up. Each time I started a new test, I got kicked out of the site or the test closed up before I could finish. And you fail if you have a poor or on-and-off network. If I did not persist I would have lost out on an employment opportunity,” he said.
Vodacom and Openserve, two major service providers in South Africa have opted to use alternative routes and cables to reduce the impact of disruptions experienced by customers.
According to News24, David Belson, the head of data insight at Cloudflare, has said websites hosted in the US or Europe may experience sluggishness or complete unavailability in South Africa due to the disruption.
“This will make websites feel slow or not work at all. Networks are actively working on bringing up new capacity to deal with the cut, while work is underway to repair the break, which may take weeks to repair,” said Belson.
This could create opportunities for other alternative service providers, such as Starlink, a satellite internet provider founded by Elon Musk.
However, Starlink does not fulfil certain criteria established by the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA). One of these criteria is that the company must have 30% ownership by previously disadvantaged groups to be licensed by ICASA. Currently, Starlink’s services are only utilised by a few African countries, including Nigeria, Rwanda, Mozambique, Mauritius, and recently Sierra Leone.