Internet outages in South Africa as undersea cables snap off the Ivory Coast

by | Mar 15, 2024

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The affected cables include the West Africa Cable System (WACS), the Africa Coast to Europe (ACE), MainOne, and SAT3 cables, causing widespread downtime.

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South Africa is grappling with a significant internet outage impacting thousands of users nationwide. The disruption stems from damage to four of the country’s nine subsea cables that connect it to the global network.

On March 14, three cables along the west coast of Africa suffered simultaneous breaks near Abidjan in the Ivory Coast, a development confirmed by Microsoft on Thursday afternoon. The affected cables include the West Africa Cable System (WACS), the Africa Coast to Europe (ACE), MainOne, and SAT3 cables, causing widespread downtime.

The outage has led to disruptions across various platforms. Downdetector, an outage tracker, recorded a sharp increase in reports of issues affecting websites, apps, and network providers offering data services.

In addition, many Vodacom customers have reported experiencing mobile data outages in several regions of the country. Tests conducted by MyBroadband in Gauteng and the Western Cape confirmed these reports, although Vodacom’s voice network remains operational.

Efforts are underway to restore connectivity and minimize the impact on users as authorities work to address the cable damage.

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