Internet in Zimbabwe still affected by cable damage
By Lance Guma
06 March 2012
Internet users in Zimbabwe, including Internet Service Providers (ISP’s)
served by TelOne, are still getting slow and intermittent internet service,
three weeks after two separate shipping accidents severed a crucial internet
and phone link for the region.
In one of the accidents, a ship dragging its anchor off the coast of the
Kenyan port city of Mombasa severed an undersea cable that cut off some nine
African countries, including Zimbabwe. Repairs are still underway amid
concerns it could take engineers up to a month to complete the work.
Another cable severed in two is known as EASSy and is owned by the West
Indian Ocean Cable Company (WIOCC). The WIOCC is jointly owned by 14 major
telecom operators in Africa, including Zimbabwe’s TelOne. Experts say
Zimbabwe has been hardest hit by the accident which cut the cable.
SW Radio Africa correspondent Simon Muchemwa told us internet speeds during
the day were now slow and many people were waiting to go online in the
evening when speeds appeared faster. Technology website Tech Zim report that
other internet providers, using alterative international cables, have not
been affected.
Tech Zim quoted sources who said: “Liquid Telecom and PowerTel, the other
two international bandwidth resellers in Zimbabwe, have not been affected by
the EASSy outage or the increased load on SEACOM (another cable) due to
traffic from the failed cables that’s been rerouted to it.”
The company responsible for the EASSy cable however is not happy with the
press reports and believe the media are exaggerating the impact. The company
said although the cable suffered a cut it only affected, “the section of
cable between Port Sudan and Djibouti…and impact on customers has been
minimal.”
But Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Minister Nelson Chamisa
told SW Radio Africa that his ministry was inundated with complaints from
people complaining about poor internet speeds: “I have instructed officials
in my ministry to get in touch with those responsible to speedily resolve
the problem.”