14 April 2021

The West Indian Ocean Cable Company (WIOCC) said its network operation centre (NOC) reported interruptions to numerous client services between Djibouti and Marseille, on the SEA-ME-WE 5 subsea cable, disrupting voice, data and internet across Africa February 16.

WIOCC’s team began carrying out restoration solutions on alternative routes for those customers most in need and WIOCC completed its restoration solutions by Friday 19.

However, by February 21, WIOCC’s NOC again witnessed multiple client services go down on the route between Djibouti and Marseille, this time caused by a problem on the Europe India Gateway (EIG) subsea cable. In addition to cutting some of the client services that had been restored from SMW5, the issue also affected a further set of clients across eastern and southern Africa.

WIOCC staff worked through the weekend to agree and deploy restoration of client services.