Johannesburg - Internet users in South Africa were left frustrated for two hours and forty minutes on Thursday, January 21 amid a disruption on two undersea cables.
Subsea broadband cable Seacom, which stretches along Africa’s eastern coastline and connects to Europe, experienced “multiple outages” on a terrestrial network across Egypt.
READ: SA internet connectivity hit by cable outages
The outages - which were caused by a fibre cut in Egypt - started at 14:06GMT (16:06 South African time) on Thursday and was then repaired at 16:46 GMT (18:46 South African time), said Seacom.
But while the outage affected Seacom, another disruption hit a major undersea cable along Africa’s western coastline: Wacs (West Africa Cable System). Reports indicate that a fault in the UK affected this particular cable.
Internet service provider MWEB, in an update to its customers, described the situation on Thursday as a "total loss of international bandwidth".
"This was caused by failures on both the Seacom and Wacs undersea cables which run along the east and west coasts of Africa respectively,” said the company.
"The likelihood of a failure on both cables at the same time is extremely low but unfortunately it happened, and most service providers in South Africa were affected as a result,” added MWEB.
Fin24 users’ reactions
Meanwhile, Fin24 users have told of how the outage affected them.
Fin24 user Hallam wrote:
“Yes, I live in Lakeside, Cape Town and all day yesterday and so far today the internet connection has been very slow, and strangely intermittent.”
Fin24 user Azzabab wrote yesterday evening:
“Slow, especially Twitter! Maybe government is retarding service because of all the negative Tweets about #ZumANC #Eskom #SAA #Davos #NoShowZuma lol”
Fin24 user Anonymous wrote:
“I could not get balances from Vodacom regarding prepaid. Also could not access links via Facebook, also our email at work was down! Not a problem, understand such problems can occur! Port Elizabeth, South Africa!”
Fin24 user Mark wrote that his “kids cannot download school apps” amid the outage.
Fin24 user Thinus said it’s difficult to live without internet:
“No Facebook, You tube, CNN, RT and no Google!!!!! That means I have nothing! No news? Is this the beginning of the worldwide collapse? On a day the existence of planet X was officially confirmed!!!!!! Baltic Dry Index hit all time low! Be very afraid!...and..... Start preparing for the worst!”
Fin24 user Thea said that she “could not Skype with my husband in Somalia” last night amid the outage.