Major internet issues have South Africans across the country following reports of undersea cable failures. Picture: Unsplash
Scores of people in South Africa have been affected by a massive internet outage that has left many of them unable to access the internet, while some have been impacted by slow internet speeds.
Vodacom informed their customers on social media about the current internet issues and warned that customers may experience issues due to failures of undersea cables.
“Certain customers are currently experiencing intermittent connectivity issues due to multiple undersea cable failures which has affected network providers in the country,” said the telecommunications company.
Certain customers are currently experiencing intermittent connectivity issues due to multiple undersea cable failures affecting SA's network providers, including us. We apologise for any inconvenience caused.
— Vodacom (@Vodacom) March 14, 2024
Microsoft Azure said that customers using Azure Services in South Africa North and South Africa West may experience increased network latency or drops when accessing their resources.
Microsoft said that they have determined that multiple fibre cables on the West Coast of Africa have been impacted, which reduced their total capacity to supporting regions in South Africa.
Downdetector, a network monitoring site, showed in increase in the number of outages that were reported for Microsoft Azure, Vodacom and Microsoft Teams.
The reports of outages started around 12:30pm on Thursday afternoon.
In 2023, internet users in South Africa were affected by poor internet service following a rock fall in the Congo Canyon caused a break in the WACS and SAT–3 undersea fibre cables.
At the time, Vodacom said that customers would be impacted by disruptions in traffic flow due to the damage done to the undersea cables.
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