Major internet disruptions left many local internet users frustrated on Tuesday morning after a significant fibre break on the Seacom backbone affected connectivity across Cape Town, reports Cape {town} Etc.
The outage reportedly began around 10:09am and caused widespread problems accessing local websites, while international sites appeared mostly unaffected, according to a Facebook update from Smile FM.
Industry sources speaking to MyBroadband said the issue stemmed from a dual-path fibre break on Seacom’s network in the Cape Town area. Seacom later confirmed a dual outage affecting parts of its terrestrial segment and west coast route, which started at 10:22am.
‘We sincerely apologise for the inconvenience caused and appreciate your patience and understanding during this incident,’ the publication quoted the company as saying.
‘Our National Operations Centre is actively investigating the fault with the relevant field teams and upstream providers. We are closely monitoring progress to provide regular updates.’
The outage caused slow or no access to international services, including Discord, OpenAI, Cloudfare, YouTube and Twitch.
Seacom confirmed that traffic had been rerouted through available backbone capacity but warned that customers could still experience degraded service due to network congestion, particularly for internet traffic towards international destinations in Europe.
Additionally, Layer-2 services between Isando and Brackenfell, Isando and Rondebosch, and Rondebosch and Brackenfell were also affected and degraded.
In its latest update, Smile FM reported that connectivity was restored at 4pm, with ongoing monitoring conducted by Seacom while the company still awaits official confirmation that the issue has been resolved.
Cape Town internet users are advised to report persistent connectivity issues to their service providers.
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Picture: charlesdeluvio / unsplash
