By Diana Wenwa
For the past few days, the country has faced a significant challenge that tested the resilience of its internet infrastructure.
A deep-sea fibre cut at the Mtunzini teleport station caused disruptions to multiple submarine cables, including Seacom and the East African Submarine System (EASSY).
As a result, the country has experienced widespread internet intermittency and slow speeds.
The Communications Authority of Kenya (CAK), alongside major telecom operators such as Safaricom and Airtel, have been at the forefront of addressing this crisis and ensuring that the nation remains connected.
The Communications Authority of Kenya issued a statement updating the public on the ongoing efforts to restore internet services.
Read more: Slow Internet In Kenya To Continue For Days
The Authority acknowledged the significant strides made by mobile network operators and internet service providers in acquiring additional capacity through other undersea cables.
According to CAK, while near-normal services have been restored, it may take some time to clear the backlog caused by the outage completely.
David Mugonyi, the Director-General and CEO of the CAK, has expressed gratitude towards the industry players for their dedication and hard work. He also thanked the consumers for their patience during this challenging period.
“We appreciate the efforts made by mobile network operators and internet service providers to restore internet services and keep the country connected,” he noted
Safaricom PLC CEO, Peter Ndegwa, announced that the company had resumed full network capacity and stability.
“We are happy to inform our customers and stakeholders that we have now resumed full network capacity and stability following last Sunday’s undersea cable cuts that affected some of our services,” read Safaricom PLC’s statement in part.
This was achieved by acquiring additional capacity from other undersea cable providers, ensuring the network remained operational.
Ndegwa commended the engineers for their relentless efforts and assured customers that the company would continue to monitor the network to ensure service stability.
Additionally, Airtel Networks Kenya has taken proactive measures to address the connectivity issues.
In their customer update, Airtel announced that they had added fibre capacity, which resulted in the normalization of data services.
“As part of our service commitment, we have added fibre capacity that has resulted in the normalization of your data experience,” read Airtel Networks Kenya’s statement in part.
The company emphasized its commitment to monitoring the services and minimizing the impact of the fault.
The initial disruption was first reported on Sunday 12 May. It led to significant data outages and congestion in internet traffic.
Watch this KUTV Digital News video explaining more about the internet disruption. https://youtu.be/1915vRZjfRM?si=Jah55Q7rrSPMfRok
The Communications Authority, after engaging with relevant industry players, confirmed that the deep-sea fibre cut had affected key submarine cables serving Kenya.
Despite these challenges, the East Africa Marine System (TEAMS) cable remained unaffected and was utilized for local traffic flow. Additionally, redundancy on the South African route was activated to minimize the impact.