Why your WiFi might be slow lately

Updated June 5, 2025, 6:17 a.m. | By East Coast Breakfast

Has your internet been slow lately? Here’s what’s happening…

If you’ve been wondering why your YouTube videos are buffering like it’s 2008, it’s not your Wi-Fi misbehaving again.

Well… maybe it is, but this time there’s a bigger culprit at play.

South Africa’s undersea internet highways are currently under some serious repair work, and one of the major routes is temporarily out of service.

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What’s going on?

At the heart of this digital traffic jam is the West Africa Cable System (WACS), one of the key undersea fibre cables that carries internet traffic from Europe all the way to Mzansi.

Think of it as a giant underwater internet pipeline stretching from Portugal to the Western Cape. It even connects with other major systems like the South Atlantic Cable System (SACS) over in Angola.

What happened?

MyBroadband reported that the drama started when engineers picked up a low-voltage issue affecting the power supply units at Swakopmund’s landing station in Namibia.

After a bit of digital detective work, the fault was traced to a Branching Unit somewhere off Namibia’s coast.

Sadly, you can’t exactly call a plumber for undersea cable problems, so a specialised repair ship had to be dispatched to sort it out.

Maintenance kicked off at 2 am on Sunday, 1 June 2025.

If all goes to plan (and the weather doesn’t throw a tantrum), everything should be back up and running by 8 am on 16 June 2025.

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Who’s feeling the slowdown?

Not everyone’s feeling the sting. Many local internet providers have backup systems in place via other undersea cables like Seacom and EASSy, especially for customers along the East Coast and in the Northern parts of the country.

Unfortunately, if you’re connected through providers relying heavily on the West Coast cables (like WACS), you might be noticing slower speeds, random dropouts, or your online games lagging like you’re playing through dial-up.

When will this be fixed?

According to Robert Kraai from Openserve (co-chair of the WACS operation and maintenance committee), the repair crew successfully recovered the faulty unit and confirmed the rest of the cable’s in good shape.

Final repairs and post-repair tests are happening as we speak.

Another industry expert, Roderick Beck, reckons that unless the ocean decides to be extra dramatic, we should see the WACS cable back in action by Sunday.

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