Massive Internet Outage Hits East Africa After Undersea Cable Failures

A massive internet outage has hit East Africa, leaving over 80 million users across multiple countries without connectivity. The disruption has been occasioned by faults in several undersea cables providing critical connection to systems and companies that provide internet and telecoms infrastructure in the region.

Sources have confirmed a cable break 42kms from Mtunzini Cable Landing Station. Mtunzini CLS is the landing point in South Africa for SAFE and EASSy. Repair teams have been mobilized with optimisations ongoing for services that are disrupted, with repair estimated to start later in the week.

Wiocc, an investor in the Eassy cable system, also confirmed that Eassy has experienced a cut between South African and Mozambique.

The Mtunzini CLS is owned and operated by Telkom South Africa. There is another cable landing station in Mtunzini owned by Liquid Telecom (Neotel), as landing point for SEACOM.

According to Ben Roberts, the Chief Technology and Information Officer at Liquid Telecom, the major Eastern Africa Submarine Cable System (EASSy) has suffered a confirmed fault. The EASSy cable is a vital 10,000km undersea line running along the eastern coastline of Africa, with landing stations in Sudan, Djibouti, Somalia, Kenya, Tanzania, Comoros, Madagascar, Mozambique and South Africa. This system acts as the backbone for internet connectivity for at least 12 landlocked nations, enabling wide coverage across East Africa.

Ben Roberts, the Chief Technology and Information Officer at Liquid Telecom confirmed the outage via his Twitter account. He indicated that the Eastern Africa Submarine Cable System (EASSy) had suffered a confirmed fault. Eastern Africa Submarine System (EASSy) is a 10,000km submarine cable system along the east coast of Africa, with 9 landing stations in Sudan, Djibouti, Somalia, Kenya, Tanzania, Comoros, Madagascar, Mozambique and South Africa, provides a backhaul system for at least 12 landlocked countries, enabling wide coverage in the East African region

Further, he indicated the outage had also been caused by damage to SEACOM, a 17,000 km (11,000 mi) submarine cable connecting South Africa, Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique, Djibouti, France and India.

Users had been reporting slow speeds and downtime for most of the day. The outage indicates the vulnerability of the region that majorly relies on undersea cables for connectivity. The high-capacity cables have allowed the region to be a premier internet superhighway for the region.

The sweeping outage is undoubtedly causing widespread disruption and economic impacts until the critical cable systems can be restored to operation. Previous damage to subsea cables – Seacom, EIG and AAE-1 – in the Red Sea that connect Africa and Southeast Asia to Europe is yet to be repaired. The cables were damaged in February after a ship dropped it’s anchor on them.

Starlink service also gets degraded

Users on Starlink services have also had to contend with poor quality of service after the Starlink network was affected by a geomagnetic storm.

Through his Twitter account, CEO and founder Elon Musk twitted “Major geomagnetic solar storm happening right now. Biggest in a long time. Starlink satellites are under a lot of pressure, but holding up so far.”

Users are still reporting degraded services and it remains to be seen when normal service will resume. The U.S. government issued its first severe geomagnetic storm watch in nearly two decades, highlighting the risk from multiple earth-directed coronal mass ejections and extensive sunspots.

The Sun sometimes releases huge clouds of electrically charged particles and radiation called solar flares or coronal mass ejections. When these particle clouds reach the Earth, they interact with our planet’s magnetic field, causing it to become unstable and shake violently. This shaking of the Earth’s magnetic field is called a geomagnetic storm.

During a geomagnetic storm, the beautiful aurora lights (northern and southern lights) can be seen over larger areas than usual. However, these storms can also cause problems with satellites, navigation systems, power grids, and communication networks on Earth.

Services are back to “near normal”

The Communications Authority of Kenya (CA) has provided an update on the restoration efforts noting that internet services are back to “near normal.”

“We note and appreciate efforts made by mobile network operators and internet service providers to restore internet services and keep the country connected through the acquisition of additional capacity in other undersea fibre cables.” The CA writes in a statement seen by Techweez.

Furthermore, the CA notes that the backlog generated by the outage might take some time to clear.

Update 16th May 2024, 14:12 – Internet services are back to “near normal” per the CA while the backlog resulting from the disruptions will take time to clear.