Good news for Seacom’s repair in the Red Sea

Seacom has announced that it expects repairs to faults on its cable in the Red Sea region to be completed in the third quarter of 2024.

It also confirmed that it had restored services to its customers affected by the East Coast cable break that occurred on 12 May.

“The physical repair of the subsea cable was completed on 31 May and the process to restore and test individual client services was completed subsequently,” says Seacom.

However, repairs to its subsea cables in the Red Sea region are taking longer. The cable was damaged in late February 2024.

“Regarding the cable repair operations in the Red Sea, Seacom and its trusted repair partners have made significant progress with their mobilisation strategy,” says Seacom.

“Current projections estimate the repair process will be completed in early Q3 2024.”

Seacom chief digital officer, Prenesh Padayachee, said the company is committed to speeding up any fault mitigation processes.

“We would like to thank them for their patience and trust as we wrap up this current process,” he added.

On 26 February 2024, Seacom announced that it was experiencing an outage on its subsea cable system in the Red Sea region.

It later emerged that the most likely culprit was the anchor of a cargo ship that Houthi militants attacked.

“It’s generally accepted that the Rubymar dropped an anchor when fired upon and as a result it damaged cables in proximity,” said International Cable Protection Committee general manager Ryan Wopschall.

Seacom said the disruption is only on the cable segment running from Mombasa, Kenya, to Zafarana, Egypt.

“Seacom still continues to carry traffic on its own cable between Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique, and South Africa for both transmission and IP services,” it added.

It rerouted all other IP-based services destined for Europe and other regions via the Equiano, PEACE, and WACS cable systems.

“Although the impact on some of our clients has an impact on their businesses across East and Southern Africa, Seacom has been working diligently to ensure the continuity of its services,” Seacom added.