Reasons as to why academic network service provider Tenet is still operational during Seacom's cable break remains a mystery to it and the undersea cable operator, but Tenet is willing to help out where it can.
Earlier this week, Seacom confirmed that a section of its undersea cable north of the Kenyan port of Mombasa had broken and that it was mobilising Tyco, the company that laid the cable, to dispatch a repair ship. However, Seacom acknowledged that the cable may be inoperable for between six to eight days.
But Tenet, Seacom's first and arguably largest customer, perplexingly has remained operational.
Tenet and the SA National Research Network connect almost all of SA's tertiary education and a number of research campuses, and they use Seacom as the primary means of linking with the rest of the world. Tenet has built a fibre optic link from Seacom's Mtunzini landing station to Durban specifically for this task.
A statement issued by Tenet today says during parts of yesterday and much of today, Tenet's Seacom capacity has been available with intermittent outages. The technical reasons why Tenet's circuit is intermittently available while other circuits remain down are not known at this time.
“During this crisis period Tenet has made, and will continue to make capacity available, to other Seacom customers with which Tenet has adequately sized interconnections. This is being done with Seacom's permission. In the circumstances there are of course no guarantees as to the availability of this capacity,” the statement says.
Tenet will cease allowing third party traffic flows to these parties as soon as Seacom is restored to full operational capacity.
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