Big Seacom cable break repairs finished
The fault on the damaged Seacom cable off the east coast of Africa has been repaired, according to reports from various observers in the space.
Seacom was damaged in early May 2024 along with the Eastern African Submarine System (EASSy) cable.
MyBroadband asked Seacom to confirm whether the faults had been repaired, but it hadn’t provided feedback by publication.
ITA co-founder and CEO Rolf Mendelsohn posted pictures of the repair on LinkedIn.
“Seacom is due to be restored soon, the damage to both cables was caused by a Trawler,” said Mendelsohn.
Phillipe Devaux, who describes himself as a keen observer of the global submarine cable systems industry, said on Tuesday, 28 May 2024, that Orange Marine’s Léon Thévenin was working on the repairs.
“Cable ship Léon Thévenin currently busy over Seacom CWG (Cable Working Ground) off Mtunzini, after some mystifying northwards excursions back and forth, off Richards Bay,” he said.
At the time of the disruption, Liquid Intelligent Technologies group CTIO Ben Roberts said a fault was confirmed on the EASSy cable, and they were observing a fault on the Seacom cable.
While many South Africans complained of poor Netflix performance and difficulties accessing other services, Roberts said the faults severely impacted Internet services in East Africa.
Instead, the challenges faced in South Africa were likely caused by several terrestrial cable failures, which reduced capacity between Johannesburg and Cape Town.
Photos of the damaged cable. From: Rolf Mendelsohn on LinkedIn.
According to Roberts, Liquid Intelligent Technologies had ruled out sabotage and said the two cables going down simultaneously was a coincidence.
West Indian Ocean Cable Company (WIOCC) confirmed on 23 May that repairs to the EASSy cable were almost complete and that the damage was consistent with a heavy object being dragged over it.
Traffic returned to EASSy on Friday, 24 May.
EASSy is a 10,000km undersea fibre optic cable system connecting countries in Eastern Africa to the rest of the world.
The Léon Thévenin was tasked with repairing the EASSy cable. It remained in the area to complete repairs to the broken Seacom cable.
According to Marine Traffic, the vessel is anchored off-shore near Mthunzini. It can tackle repairs in depths ranging from 10 metres to 7km.
It is equipped with various tools, including grapnels, buoys, ropes, and dead weights, designed to assist with cable work.
It also has a remotely operated vehicle onboard. This vehicle detects, cuts, recovers, joins, and tests undersea fibre cables.
The triple cable cut in the Red Sea impacting Seacom, EIG, and AAE1 remains unrepaired.
This damage was likely caused by a ship’s anchor after it was attacked by Houthi rebels.
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