Madagascar internet services collapse

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Madagascar internet services collapse

1:21 CAT | 31 Jan 2017

Nation Media Group (File photo) / Engineers pull the EASSy cable from a ship that docked at the Kenya coast in 2010

Internet services in Madagascar have suffered a major disruption following a breakdown on the Eastern Africa Submarine System (EASSy) cable.

EASSy cable serves as the gateway to the country’s widest optic fibre networks with high speed connection bandwidth.

The cable has reportedly broken down at 2,600m depth and at 38km away from the coastal city of Toliara on the island’s south-western region.

“Our technical teams have been striving night and day to fix it as soon as possible,” the company said in a release.

Troubleshooting

The EASSy cable also connects South Africa, Mozambique, Tanzania, Kenya, Somalia, Djibouti and Sudan.

It further connects Botswana, Burundi, the Central Africa, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Chad, Ethiopia, Lesotho, Malawi, Rwanda, Swaziland, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

Source said the troubleshooting may take a couple of weeks due to the technical complexities.

Four days

The Network Operation Centre (NOC) in Antaninarenina, Antananarivo was first required to hire one ship dedicated to the EASSy cable’s repair.

The ship in question was last weekend expected to load the requisite equipment and spare parts in Cape Town, South Africa, before heading to Madagascar.

The journey could last up to four days.

Internet consumers on the island nation were now forced to seek alternative and more costly solutions.

First of its kind

The breakdown was the first of its kind since the country’s submarine cable launching in 2006 with the World Bank’s support amounting to $20 million.

It was part of the Connect Africa Project, initiated under the New Partnership for the African Development (Nepad).

Together with five other African countries, Madagascar was for the first time connected to the World Wide Web in 1996, thanks to the US-funded Leland Project.

Source: Africa Review