Undersea cable chaos: Why South Africa’s internet is in crisis

Major undersea cable outages disrupt internet services across South Africa, leading to massive disruptions and delayed repairs. Learn about the key cables affected and their impact on international connectivity.

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By Myles Illidge

Ten undersea cables connect South Africa to the rest of the world and other parts of the continent, and they play a critical role in providing stable connections to international servers.

Four major cables are currently experiencing outages, and repairs can take weeks to months. When cables like these break, it can result in severe service disruptions and force companies to re-route traffic to mitigate the effects.

Seacom suffered an outage on its subsea cable system in the Red Sea region on Saturday, 24 February 2024, disrupting the cable running from Mombasa, Kenya, to Zafarana, Egypt.

In early March 2024, it was reported that a Houthi attack on a cargo ship in the Red Sea had damaged three cables in the region, which likely included the Seacom/Tata EGN-Eurasia cable.

“It’s generally accepted that the Rubymar dropped an anchor when fired upon and as a result, it damaged cables in proximity,” said Ryan Wopschall, general manager of the International Cable Protection Committee, the group representing subsea cable operators.

On Thursday, 14 March 2024, South African residents reported massive Internet problems across the country, including a lack of connectivity for some and the inability to use mission-critical services like Microsoft’s cloud platform.

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MyBroadband learned that outages on the West Africa Cable System (WACS), Africa Coast to Europe (ACE), and SAT3 cables near Abidjan in Côte d’Ivoire were to blame for the issues.

Microsoft services, including 365 and Teams, were heavily impacted by the disruptions and on 15 March, the company warned its customers that cable repairs had been delayed.

In the meantime, it has re-routed traffic to restore cloud platform functionality in South Africa.

The following day, MTN Group’s Bayobab said the WACS and ACE consortiums had mobilised a cable repair ship to start working on the break on 15 March.

It was initially believed that roadworks in the region had damaged the cables. However, WIOCC soon ruled this out.

Equinix-owned submarine cable operator MainOne said its preliminary analysis points to seismic activity in the area.

“Given the distance from land and the cable depth of about 3km at the point of fault, any kind of human activity — ship anchors, fishing, drilling, etc. has been immediately ruled out,” MainOne said.

The four cables that experienced breaks in the past month are among the longest that land in South Africa.

The ACE subsea cable spans from France to Duynefontein in South Africa, measuring 17,000km.

Seacom’s cable is slightly shorter at 15,000km, while the WACS and SAT-3 cables measure 14,530km and 14,350km, respectively.

SAT-3 is also often paired with the SAFE cable. Together, they span 27,850km.

In comparison, the 2Africa cable is the longest cable that will land in South Africa, with a total length of 45,000km.

All the subsea cables connecting South Africa to other parts of the world are listed below. They are arranged according to cable length, from longest to shortest. The map images are sourced from TeleGeography’s Submarine Cable Map.

2Africa (launching 2024)

Length: 45,000km
Investors: Bayobab, China Mobile, Meta Platforms, Orange, Saudi Telecom, Telecom Egypt, Vodafone, WIOCC
South African landing point(s): Amanzimtoti – KwaZulu-Natal, Gqeberha – Eastern Cape, and Melkbosstrand and Yzerfontein – Western Cape.

Africa Coast to Europe (ACE)

Length: 17,000km
Investors: Bayobab, Benin ACE GIE, Cable Consortium of Liberia, Canalink, Dolphin Telecom, GUILAB, Gambia Submarine Cable Company, IInternational Mauritania Telecom, Orange, Orange Cameroun, Orange Cote d’Ivoire, Orange Mali, Republic of Cameroon, Republic of Equatorial Guinea, Republic of Gabon, Republic of Guinea Bissau, STP Cabo, Sierra Leone Cable Company, Sonatel, Zamani Telecom
South African landing point(s): Duynefontein, Western Cape

Equiano

Length: 15,000km
Investors: Google
South African landing point(s): Melkbosstrand, Western Cape

Length: 15,000km
Investors: SEACOM, Tata Communications
South African landing point(s): Mtunzini, KwaZulu-Natal

West Africa Cable System

Length: 14,530km
Investors: Altice Portugal, Angola Cables, Bayobab, Broadband Infraco, Camtel, Cape Verde Telecom, Congo Telecom, Liquid Intelligent Technologies, Office Congolais de Poste et Télécommunication, PCCW, Tata Communications, Telecom Namibia, Telkom South Africa, Togo Telecom, Vodacom DRC, Vodafone, Vodafone Espana, Vodafone Ghana
South African landing point(s): Yzerfontein, Western Cape

SAT-3/WASC

Length: 14,350km
Investors: AT&T, Altice Portugal, Angola Telecom, BICS, BT, Benin Telecoms, Camtel, China Telecom, Chunghwa Telecom, Cyta, Deutsche Telekom, Ghana Telecommunications Company, KPT, KT, Liquid Intelligent Technologies, Maroc Telecom, Mauritius Telecom, NATCOM, OPT, Orange, Orange Cote d’Ivoire, PCCW, Singtel, Sparkle, T-Mobile, Tata Communications, Telecom Namibia, Telekom Malaysia, Telkom South Africa, Telstra, Telxius, Verison, Vodafone
South African landing point(s): Melkbosstrand, Western Cape.

SAFE

Length: 13,500km
Investors: AT&T, Angola Telecom, BICS, Camtel China Telecom, Chunghwa Telecom, Ghana Telecommunications Company, KPN, KT, Liquid Intelligent Technologies, Maroc Telecom, Mauritius Telecom, NATCOM, OPT, Orange, Orange Cote d’Ivoire, PCCW, Singtel, Sonatel, Sparkle, T-Mobile, Tata Communications, Telecom Namibia, Telefonica, Telekom Malaysia, Telkom South Africa, Telstra, Verizon, Vodafone
South African landing point(s): Melkbosstrand, Western Cape, and Mtunzini, KwaZulu-Natal

Eastern Africa Submarine System (EASSy)

Length: 10,500km
Investors: BT, Bayobab, Bharti Airtel, Botswana Fibre Networks, Comores Telecom, Djibouti Telecom, Etisalat UAE, Liquid Intelligent Technologies, Mauritius Telecom, Orange Saudi Telecom, Sudatel, Tanzania Telecommunication Corporation, Telkom Kenya, Telkom South Africa, Tlema (Telecom Malagasy), Vodacom DRC, WIOCC, Zambia Telecom
South African landing point(s): Mtunzini, KwaZulu-Natal

Meltingpot Indianoceanic Submarine System (METISS)

Length: 3,200km
Investors: CEB Fibernet, Canal+ Telecom, Emtel SFR, Telma (Telecom Malagasy), Zeop
South African landing point(s): Umbogintwini, KwaZulu-Natal