Photo Credit: © Hans Hillewaert [CC BY-SA 4.0] (Cropped)
The WACS undersea cable, which is one of the cables in the dual cable break that caused South Africa’s internet to slow down, will hopefully be fixed within the next three days.
The Leon’s Journey So Far
At 01:08 am (GMT+2) this morning (27 January 2020), the Leon Thevenin was in Angolan waters. The repair ship is moving up the west coast of Africa at speeds between 12kn (22.22km/h) and 13kn (24.08km/h) towards the undersea cable break near Luanda, Angola.
You can follow the vessel yourself on www.marinetraffic.com with this direct link to the ship.
Repair
The repair should hopefully not take longer than 48 hours and the switch back to the cable will probably take around 24-48 hours, but I can’t say for sure.
The WACS Cable
The WACS cable has a capacity of 14.5 terabits which makes it the fastest international internet connection to and from South Africa.
Our second and third fastest cables are the Seacom (12 terabits) and the EASSy (10 terabits) respectively. Both reach land at Mtunzini, Kwa-Zulu Natal, on the east side of South Africa.
In fourth place is the ACE cable with a capacity of 5 terabits. This is the only working cable connecting on South Africa’s west side at the moment.
The fifth-fastest cable is the SAT3 with a mere 800-gigabit capacity and is the second cable in the dual cable break. More info on its repair will be available soon.
Follow the Story
- Why the internet was so slow
- The ship not being able to leave Cape Town harbour
- Updates from three ISPs
- The day the vessel left Cape Town harbour
Closing
The ship should reach the repair site in the evening of 28 January 2020 and begin the 48-hour repair to alleviate South Africa’s internet connectivity to the African West Coast, Europe, the UK and both the Americas.
