South Africa’s Internet Cable Critical to Connect with the World Breaks Again

The WACS (West Africa Cable System) undersea cable, which is critical to South Africa connection with the world, is broken again.

TENET, which is the operating partner of the South African national research & education network (SA NREN), said it detected the break by 23:28 last night.

We are observing our WACS capacity as down since 23h28 UTC/27th March 2020. A call has been logged with our provider for feedback. Traffic has failed over to SEACOM and EASSy cable systems and there is currently no impact for SA NREN traffic.

— SA NREN Operational Updates & Alerts (@RENAlerts) March 28, 2020

This will have an impact on South African Internet users.

With the WACS and continued SAT-3 outages on the East Coast, SA NREN users working from home during the #Covid19SA #LockdownSA may experience issues if their home providers do not have sufficient capacity via alternate sub-sea cable systems.

— SA NREN Operational Updates & Alerts (@RENAlerts) March 28, 2020

The last time South Africa was affected by a major cable break was in January, which also involved the WACS international link going down.

SAT-3 Outage: The Leon Thevenin cable vessel continues to make progress on the repair. The estimated repair completion date for the SAT 3 Segment 3 outage is 2nd April 2020.

— SA NREN Operational Updates & Alerts (@RENAlerts) March 27, 2020