Some internet users have been left frustrated the past week after the cable break of the West African Cable System (WACS) that slowed down internet speeds across South Africa from 27 March.
This was even more frustrating as South Africa went into lockdown and those who were working from home or binging on their favourite series had to deal with slow internet.
The South African National Research and Education Network (SA NREN) said the repair process of the broken cable took several days.
WACS Outage Update: Initial splicing completion expected by 17:00 UTC today. The planned repair completion has shifted forward slightly to Friday afternoon, 03/04/2020, but is subject to change.
— SA NREN Operational Updates & Alerts (@RENAlerts) April 1, 2020
In a tweet, SA NREN said, “The repair process is ongoing and on track with previously communicated timelines. We are hopeful that our #WorkFromHome beneficiaries will not be inconvenienced for too much longer due to this outage.”
WACS Outage Update: Post recovery checks are being conducted and therefore the connectivity may be interrupted briefly at times. We are awaiting final clearance that all is well.
— SA NREN Operational Updates & Alerts (@RENAlerts) April 3, 2020
By 4 April, the WACS repairs were complete and the matter had been resolved from an SA NREN perspective.
Twitter users were pleased that the cable had been finally been repaired.
Thank goodness this past week was just depressing
— It'sTk ???????????????????????? (@KupeModise) April 4, 2020
Uh, great news. I hope for a productive week next week then… unless my internet connectivity issues were due to misconfigurations by my ISP ???? ????????
— A luta continua ???????? (@imthembamdakane) April 4, 2020
Thank you. I hope measures were put in place so that this can not happen again anytime soon.
— Daniel Campbell (@Dante_greatest) April 4, 2020
@Sp3cialiist I hope this is OVER for good.
— Lorenzo Louw (@R_Lorenzo_) April 4, 2020
Final, thanks.
— Through the wire (@Nathino__Nathi) April 4, 2020