What is ACTUALLY happening to your internet connectivity?
If you’re like many South Africans who rely on the internet for work or personal entertainment, you may have questions about slow speeds and internet outages. Editor at MyBroadband, Jan Vermeulen, spoke to East Coast Radio about these issues and when they may be resolved.
Jan Vermeulen, Editor at MyBroadband, shed light on the recent technical issues affecting the West Africa Cable System (WACS) and how they impact internet connectivity in South Africa.
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Speaking to East Coast Radio, Vermeulen explained that the fault on the WACS was caused by a defective branching unit. This unit was identified and subsequently pulled onto a repair ship to commence repairs.
Unfortunately, updates on the repair’s progress have been limited. Initial estimations suggested that internet traffic should resume normalcy by 16 June, but official confirmation is still pending. The branching unit’s location, just off the coast of Namibia, allowed for a quick dispatch of the repair ship.
Internet service providers in South Africa were given approximately a week's notice about the impending maintenance. This foresight helped in mitigating the sudden impact of the fault, as the issue with the branching unit didn't cause an abrupt halt in services.
Vermeulen shared that repairing a subsea cable is a complex task involving advanced techniques to identify the fault’s precise location. The repair team performed diagnostic tests to eliminate possibilities and pinpointed the branching unit as the problem. Once identified, the crew pulled this section of the cable onto the ship's deck for maintenance. The defective unit will be analysed.
“They will then replace the branching unit and do some tests and [sic] then make sure it's working. Then hopefully it's just the one thing that's broken because [if] they see that this branching unit is broken, it doesn't mean that something else isn't broken further down the line,” he explained.
The impact of this fault on South African internet traffic was considerable, as many internet service providers (ISPs) overly rely on WACS for their international traffic. Despite the existence of multiple cables connecting South Africa, cost-saving measures require ISPs to focus primarily on WACS.
Some service providers that had made preparations using the one-week notice or had redundant capacities experienced less impact.
Although WACS is crucial, South Africa has other cables like Google’s Equiano, Telkom's SAT-3, and the under-construction 2Africa cable, providing redundancy. Providers diversifying their cable usage could avoid substantial impacts from similar incidents in the future.
“For example, we've got Google’s Equiano cable coming down on the West Coast that offers a lot of extra capacity that people can use. Then Telkom’s old three cables are still there. Then there are several other cables on the East Coast that people can use,” Vermeulen shared.
On the repairs timeline, 16 June was the official estimated date for the fault's complete resolution. This date came directly from WACS. Independent analysts had optimistic estimates suggesting a quicker fix but no official updates confirm this speculation. Until an official change, the 16th remains the anticipated date.
Regarding future prevention, Vermeulen stated that while more robust equipment and frequent maintenance could mitigate incidents, infrastructure will always require repairs. The unforgiving nature of the ocean can often damage even the most resilient materials.
“If you think of roads, for example, sometimes there are potholes that you have to send out a team to repair and that sometimes means closing a few roads to repair that pothole. And so there's no way around it,” he explained
While the current protocol of quick fault identification and timely dispatch works efficiently, expanding the fleet of repair ships might ensure quicker responses to future faults. Having enough redundancy in the system ensures minimal disruption to the end-users.
Ensuring the WACS and other cables remain operational is imperative, considering the growing digital dependency.
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