The cables are crucial for connecting South Africa to the rest of the African continent and Europe. Photo: iStockconnectivity after two undersea communication cables that are critical for network operators in the country broke.
It is understood a rock fall in the Congo Canyon on Sunday caused the breaks in WACS and the South Atlantic 3 undersea cables.The disruption has affected online services including video streaming platforms like TikTok, YouTube, Netflix, and Disney+ among others.it will take a month or more for a cable repair ship to reach the site of a break in the West African Cable System about 3 600km northwest of South Africa.
“Progress is going to be slow this time. Exactly this same thing happened towards the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. In fact, just a couple of months before lockdown set in. So, it happened twice, a couple of months before the lockdown and then just as lockdown happened.