Speaking in Dar es Salaam, Vodacom Tanzania Managing Director, Rene Meza said his company had no option but to route all its internet traffic through the Seacom Submarine Cable in the Indian Ocean in order to ensure that customers had continued access to the internet.
“As a result of this, customers will have experienced low internet and delays in the execution of other services which rely on the internet. We understand the inconvenience that this outage has caused them and would like to apologize to them and to ask for their patience and support while we work to restore our services,” said Meza.
He went on to say that due to its location on the Southern tip of Africa, the Eassy submarine cable is designed to carry Vodacom’s internet traffic via the Atlantic Ocean whereas the Seacom one routes traffic via the Indian Ocean adding that…” the two cables are also able to support each other in times of failure and that is why we are now carrying all our internet traffic through the former. This increased traffic load on the Seacom cable is slowing down our internet speeds as it is now carrying a far heavier load than it was originally designed to.”
With regards to what was being done to rectify the situation, Meza said, the Eassy technical team was working hard to assess the magnitude of the damage caused by the fibre cut at Mtunzini Bay which lies 29.5 kilometres off the shore of the Atlantic Ocean and to repair it.
“We would kindly like to request our esteemed customers to please bear with us as we continue to work to restore all our services. I would like to assure our esteemed customers that we at Vodacom remain committed to continue providing them with world-class services and our aim is to restore services as soon as possible,” says Meza