SEACOM SEA-ME-WE 4 problems may be resolved soon
SEACOM last week said that it experienced a brief interruption in its network on 14 April 2010 as a result of a fault on the Mediterranean section of the SEA-ME-WE 4 submarine cable system, which SEACOM currently utilizes to connect to London.
SEA-ME-WE 4, which stretches from South East Asia to Europe via the Indian Sub-Continent and Middle East, was initially scheduled to undergo repairs on Saturday 24 April 2010 to fix the affected fibre pair in the Mediterranean Sea.
According to SEACOM this process is carried out by a repair ship which has been deployed to the location of the fault where it will pick up the cable, cut it and bring it onboard to undergo the repair on the optic fibre before the cable is placed back in the water. SEACOM said that this will result in the power being shut down on the cable for the duration of the repair.
This process took much longer than expected, something which SEACOM indicated is beyond their control. “Due to ongoing maintenance activity on another cable network servicing Africa and poor weather in the Mediterranean Sea, the actual work only began on Sunday 25 April 2010 resulting in the SEACOM service experiencing interruptions from around mid-day on Sunday,” SEACOM said in a press statement.
The ongoing repair work is affecting several cable systems and has impacted negatively on the overall Internet connectivity in many regions across the Middle East, Africa and Asia, which rely to some extent on the availability of the SEA-ME-WE 4 cable for global connectivity.
“Repair work is managed and controlled by SEA-ME-WE 4 who has indicated that the repair window may be extended to Friday 30 April 2010 for reasons unknown to SEACOM at this point,” SEACOM said on Monday.
SEACOM however said this morning that the latest notification it received from SEA-ME-WE 4 indicated that the repair work is expected to be completed by 22.00 on 28 April 2010 (UTC).
SEACOM promised to issue updates about the cable repair progress as they become available.
SEACOM SEA-ME-WE 4 repairs << comments and views
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