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SEACOM - What happened and what you can do to get a work around
Posted by: scooter on Jul 09, 2010
Have you been hit hard by the internet problems plaguing SA over the past week? Wonder what in blazers is going on? Here is a little article to explain it and give you some alternatives.
In SA, we have for years had 2 cables run by Telkom along the west coast of Africa that connect us to Europe and the East. (SAT3 and SAFE). Recently, a new cable called Seacom was installed. This cable offered hugely improved rates to overseas sites and is probably the largest driver of the drop in pricing on ADSL over the last 6 months.
Many ISP's moved to make use of Seacom. With the World Cup now on, FIFA has reserved great chunks of capacity on the SAT-3 and SAFE cables. This was not a problem until the Seacom cable experienced a fault on Monday this week. This resulted in no international connectivity for clients using companies like Afrihost, Axxess, some MWEB accounts - there were many ISP's affected.
Because of FIFA reserving a lot of capacity on the alternative cables, there was just no spare capacity for ISP's to buy for the short term. This has resulted in severe disruption to users who rely on a Seacom based ADSL account (and in fact the knock on effect has impacted most of SA's internet users).
As for what to do - well the Seacom issue is being worked on frantically so no doubt the issue will be resolved soon. But the reality is that they have to FIND the break point (which they have done), then repair it on a cable that is lying on the ocean floor. Not as easy as fixing your leaking hosepipe I can assure you! What we have done here at our offices is to make use of a prepaid ADSL account that relies of the SAT-3/SAFE cable. There are several companies out there that do offer this.
NEXUS at R59 per GB
WEBAFRICA at R69 per GB
If you are desperate, we recommend you get an account with one of these guys (or any other company that offers a SAT-3/SAFE solution (often referred to as a SAIX solution)) and use this for the time being. Once the Seacom issue is resolved, go back to using the discounted ADSL service. Looking ahead, SA has got several new cables lined up such as the EASSY cable (see image above). This will give us even more choice and redundancy. Furthermore, FIFA needs access for another week or so and then they are going so this type of scenario is unlikely to impact SA as badly as this again.
I hope that this article helps to clarify what has happened and gives you some options to help you get by. Happy surfing!
Thanks
The JustConnect Team
admin@justconnect.co.za
Tel 011 317 4909
Please note that we do not endorse any company mentioned in this article.
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