Your internet down? Slow speeds due to cable breaks says telecom firm

If you’ve been struggling to get online at your regular speeds today, a widespread cable break might be to blame, though cable providers claim a restoration is underway.

Subscribers across the Mzansi reported issues with their Telkom connection from early this morning, with complaints that their internet wasn’t up to subscribed speeds.

Adding to the confusion has been the sporadic nature of these slow speeds. Issues have been reported in multiple provinces, through multiple ISPs, though parts of Johannesburg and Cape Town appear to be the most affected.

According to online fault trackers, the first widespread reports began filtering through at around 9am. Openserve has ascertained that the SAT3/WASC break is in the Libreville, Gabon vicinity and that the WACS break point is in the vicinity of Luanda, Angola.

The unusual and simultaneous dual cable break has resulted in customers, that are connected to Openserve’s global capacity clients, experiencing reduced speed on international browsing. International voice calling and mobile roaming has also been impacted

The WACS and SAT3/WASC cable systems are deployed in the Atlantic Ocean and connect South Africa and many other African countries to Europe. The WACS system lands in South Africa at Yzerfontein, Western Cape while the SAT3/WASC system enters South Africa at Melkbosstrand, Western Cape.

Webafrica acknowledged to this problems earlier through a series of tweets, though did not identify exactly how long the interruption will last for.

As of an update issued within the past three hours, however, Openserve said that it has made its resources available to both consortiums to assist wherever possible and that undersea cable infrastructure repairs are complex and can be time consuming.

It’s unclear at this stage exactly how many subscribers have been impacted, though as is to be expected some of the more vocal took to Twitter to complain about the company.

I had to get off my Telkom Fibre so that I could tweet and complain about how slow it the internet is. Wow.

— NdimhleFcukedUp (@JackDevero) January 16, 2020

2mbps download speed on a 100mbps fibre line from Telkom 😱

— Kojo Baffoe (@kojobaffoe) January 16, 2020

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#Internet #openserve #Telkom #WiFi

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Papi Mabele

Papi Mabele has a marketing background, he is a digital marketing expert with extensive experience in launching and building global brands in the emerging markets. Papi is also an avid tech writer, enthusiast and all round tech junkie. As a freelance writer and analyst he has been numerously published in Popular Mechanics (SA), GQ South Africa, Premier Magazine, Driven Magazine, Bloem News, Courant, The Weekly, Enthooze Magazine and PiE magazine amongst others.