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Sub-Saharan African countries have been dealing with weak internet connection for days. There have been several complaints of slow connections and the inability to access data. This was due to breakage in the South Atlantic 3 cable (SAT-3) and the West Africa Cable System (WACS) which connects western and central Africa to Europe. They offer MTN and other providers the network service they transfer to end-users in the region.
South Africa and the Democratic Republic of Congo were mostly affected. However, several MTN users around Nigeria, Ghana, and Namibia also reported similar problems with the network. Currently, traffic is rerouted via the eastern coast of Africa (the SEACOM/EASSy cables), but the capacity is insufficient.
A tech team have been dispatched to Cape Town to work on the broken cables. They are supposed to proceed to the Democratic Republic of Congo thereafter. However, progress is behind schedule, since the Cape Town area is currently being plagued by tree uprooting winds.
It might, therefore, be a while until MTN will be able to resolve their network problems by getting the SAT-3 and WACS cables fully functional again.
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