12 OCTOBER 2011

SEACOM experienced a service affecting outage in the Mediterranean on Saturday, 8th October between Abu Talat (Egypt) and Marseilles (France). 

SEACOM has now substantially completed the restoration process for its customers.  The estimated time of final repair remains approximately two weeks.

SEACOM continues to monitor the situation closely and will provide customers with updates regularly.

http://www.seacom.mu/news/article-82/seacom-update-on-restoration-12-october/

SOURCE : http://mybroadband.co.za/news/telecoms/35656-seacom-downtime-may-last-for-days.html

Summary: SEACOM downtime which started on 8 October may take as long as a week to resolve.

SEACOM is experiencing downtime again.  The cable system went down on Saturday 8 October 2011, and initial feedback suggests that the downtime may last for a few days.

SEACOM said that their Mediterranean backhaul service provider is experiencing a service affecting outage between Abu Talat and Marseilles. This is affecting all SEACOM traffic to Europe.

“SEACOM is working at restoring our customers on alternative routes and will continue to monitor the situation closely,” the SEACOM website states.

MWEB informed their subscribers on Sunday 9 October MWEB said that they were still waiting for an expected time when the problem will be resolved.

“At present we are running at just over 60% of our full international requirement. Seacom is arranging additional capacity for us on alternative routes and we expect to be back up to full capacity by the end of today,” said MWEB ISP CEO Derek Hershaw.

Openweb also informed their subscribers that the SEACOM cable is down again. “Faithfully known as the phantom cable, the SA internet will be suffering dearly again this week due to its failure,” Openweb founderKeoma Wright told subscribers.

TENET Weekly Graph

TENET CTO Andrew Alston said that they have had confirmation that SEACOM is offline and is unlikely to come back online for a few days.

The SEACOM downtime seems to be related to a failure on the Telecom Egypt North (TE North) submarine telecommunications cable linking France and Egypt.

Early indications suggest that it may take around a week to repair the problem. SEACOM may however be down for 10 days or longer.

SEACOM could not immediately be reached for comment.

Why do I need an ADSL Splitter? (or POTS filter)

 Apart from a modem/router the most important will be a POTS filter / ADSL Splitter.

This simple device filters certain “noise” from interfering on your ADSL line caused by your phone and vice versa. Without this device you will usually have to forfeit your ability to make normal phone calls and make use of the Internet freely and simultaneously without any interference.

It seems that it is not an undersea cable break on SEACOM which is responsible for the latest downtime, but rather issues on the route between Alexandria and Cairo.

We are still waiting on feedback and ETAs on repairs. Will keep you posted from this side.

Visit http://mybroadband.co.za/news/telecoms/19151-More-SEACOM-downtime-frustrates-ISPs.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter to read more.