A power failure on the SAT-3 undersea cable left customers without international Internet access from 8.30am this morning.
This is the second failure in under a month, and Telkom says the power failure happened during planned maintenance on the line between Lagos and Abidjan. “The SAT-3 maintenance technicians are busy re-routing restorable traffic. This process commenced at 9.59am this morning,” the company explained in a statement.
Last month, the cable failed between Accra and Abidjan, leaving Telkom customers without access for several hours. The consortium that owns the cable had planned downtime of between four and six hours; however, the failure caused the capacity blackout to last longer.
SAT-3 connects SA with the southern coast of Europe through its landing stations in Portugal's Sesimbra and Spain's Chipiona.
The consortium has spent millions getting the cable upgraded in the face of newly-introduced competitor Seacom. The cable system was boosted to speeds of 340Gbps to cater for growth in demand for international bandwidth.
Telkom's West Coast equivalent, Safe, was also upgraded to carry a 440Gbps capacity.
As the largest investor, Telkom will want the cables to run at their best over the next few years, since many other competing cables are being landed in the country soon. The most anticipated is the West African Cable System, which holds the investment of all the local operators.
Sentech will land the Africa Coast to Europe cable, and the East African Submarine System will also see South African shores as a competing capacity provider.
Telkom will also want the cable in top form for Africa's showcase of technology excellence during the coming Fifa Soccer World Cup.
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