20100713
allafrica

Johannesburg — SEACOM, the broadband cable operator, said yesterday that a major fault in its cable north of Kenya would be fixed only around July 22, more than a week later than first hoped.

Seacom was greeted with fanfare when it launched last July, as South African internet users looked forward to improved connectivity and lower prices thanks to the end of the monopoly on international bandwidth held by Telkom 's SAT3/SAFE cable.

But the Seacom cable failed near Mombasa on July 5, leaving many households without international internet access for several days.

Connections were restored late last week when internet providers secured bandwidth through SAT3/SAFE, but this temporary solution is understood to come at considerable cost.

Seacom initially said it would fix the fault within six to eight days, but was forced to lower its sights after realising the depth of the cable at the problem point.

"We found the cable was about 4700m deep - that's one of the deepest parts of the system," said spokesman Suveer Ramdhani. "The cable ship we'd planned to use wouldn't be able to cope. We needed a more sophisticated ship, which added to the delay."

Seacom now believed the problem was caused by the failure of a "repeater" - a device that amplifies the signal carried - but a partial break of the cable could also be to blame.

Mr Ramdhani said he was confident repairs would be finished by July 22 but admitted bad weather could cause further delays.

MWeb, one of the internet providers affected by the problem, had now resumed normal levels of service, said Andre Joubert, GM of its business services division.