South Africa experienced a massive internet outage on Thursday, with internet users across the country reporting slow speeds or unresponsive pages.
A Vodacom spokesperson told News24 that multiple submarine cable failures between South Africa and Europe are affecting network providers including Vodacom.
“This means some customers are currently experiencing intermittent connectivity issues,” the spokesperson said.
Network monitoring website DownDetector showed a significant increase in reports of outages on many of the country’s largest network platforms starting around 12:30.
As of 15:00, the number of outage reports on DownDetector for some platforms, including Microsoft, Vodacom and MTN, as well as WhatsApp, had dropped from a high of around 13:30.
Here is a list of some companies reporting severe outages on DownDetector.
- Microsoft
- MTN
- Vodacom
- Open service
- X
- african host
- Cell C
- Various banking platforms
News24 understands that West African Cable Systems is one of the cables currently affected.
Undersea cable company Seacom reported multiple cable breaks in the Red Sea at the end of February. The break is said to have occurred after an anchor from a sunken ship in the area was dragged through a cable.
News24 understands the current outage was caused by a further fault, but the exact cause is not yet known.
Johannesburg and Cape Town have received “rerouting” status on Cloudflare, one of the largest networks on the internet.
Microsoft Azure posted a status update on its website warning customers about network issues on the continent. The company said it is investigating the issue.
“Customers using Azure services in the north and west of South Africa may experience increased network latency or packet loss, performance degradation and availability issues when accessing their resources.”
A Vodacom spokesman said the matter was being dealt with.