CAIRO: East African companies and businesses are still frustrated that full Internet and telecommunications have not returned to normal, three weeks on since an underwater cable off the Kenyan coast was broken. Repairs are continuing, but governments in the area said it could take up to a month to complete all repairs and put back the cable to function properly. The severed cables caused severe slowdown in internet traffic and intermittent performance of links in East and Southern Africa. Countries affected include Kenya, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, Tanzania, South Sudan, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Chris Wood, the WIOCC chief executive has called the situation “very unusual.” In Zimbabwe, Internet users and ISPs served by the country's fixed line operator, TelOne, have been experiencing intermittent Internet services since the EASSy cable broke. TelOne is part of the WIOCC consortium that has ownership in EASSy. Other internet providers using alterative international cables like SEACOM have however not been affected. WIOCC and other cable operators have said that the repairs are “taking place around the clock” and that they hope “to return customers and users services to normal as soon as possible.” The cable cut has caused bandwidth in many East African cities and towns dramatically reduced, but Zimbabwe has been hit hardest. BM ShortURL: http://goo.gl/ZyrN3 Tags: Africa, East, Internet, Outage Section: Business, East Africa, International, Latest News, Tech
