CAIRO: Internet users in East Africa began to see a reduction in speeds on Tuesday after two undersea fiber optic cables delivering broadband service to the region were severed by ships' anchors off the coast. It could take as long as two weeks or more to fix the problem, companies involved said on Tuesday. Cables operated by Teams, a company partly owned by the Kenyan government, were cut on Saturday near the Kenyan port of Mombasa by a ship's anchor. Eleven days earlier, another ship dragging its anchor cut the cables of Eassy, a consortium of telecommunications companies. “Eassy suffered a cut on February 17 in the Red Sea,” Chris Wood, CEO of the West Indian Ocean Cable Co, the largest investor in Eassy, told reporters on Tuesday. “That cut didn't materially affect any traffic… however, in the same incident, two other cables were cut, and they carry a lot of traffic,” he added. Wood said that most traffic had been re-routed through South Africa, and that ships were being mobilized to repair the cables. Repair time on the cables would be 15 to 20 days, he said. Local Internet companies have re-routed their traffic through another cable operated by the privately owned Seacom, which said its services were operating normally. BM ShortURL: http://goo.gl/GFzno Tags: Cut, East Africa, Internet Cable Section: Business, East Africa, Latest News
