Fresh cable cuts hits businesses

Businesses that rely on internet connectivity have been hit hard, as cable cuts left them offline over the last two days.

Internet service providers reported repeated outages across the country as construction crews and vandals cut Kenya’s core inland fibre-optic link on the Mombasa-Nairobi route.

The cable is currently Kenya’s sole connection to the international internet gateway via the undersea fibre optic cables.

The cut comes at a time when two major undersea fibre optic cables are operating expected capacity, leaving providers to call for stiffer penalties to curb vandalism and unwarranted cuts.

Hardest hit was electronic currency trading, as the outage caused left banks unable to communicate with each other on the inter-bank system and were left to turn to sharing information manually or over telephone.

The downtime depressed trading volumes by over 50 per cent in some institutions. Internet banking services, ATMs and mobile banking services were also affected.

“Everyone is very cautious about trading without a full picture of what is happening in the market,” said Standard Chartered Currency trader, Mr Dickson Magecha.

Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) firms bemoaned losses while telecommunications firms and ISP providers moved quickly to supplicate their clients with apologies over the situation.

Traders at the Nairobi Securities Exchange reported problems communicating with overseas investors, as the cable cuts have affected both international calls and internet connections.

The cuts primarily affected Kenya Data Network’s (KDN) infrastructure. Contractors doing working in Jomvu and Miritini cut the cable in some areas while exposing it to vandals in other areas.

KDN carries over 80 per cent of all international traffic from Kenya. Clients who rely on the fibre line include Airtel and Access Kenya. The company undertook repairs yesterday and services resumed albeit with some instability.

“We are back online, but we are still having issues here and there,” said Access Kenya CEO, Kris Senanu.

Viewers of Wananchi Group’s cable TV service, Zuku, continued to face disruptions in transmission throughout the day.

Telkom Orange has a fibre optic link on the same route and its services were also affected. The company was already experiencing service degradation in its Ugandan markets after a cable in Eldoret was cut on Monday.

KDN’s redundancy links running on Kenya Power’s aerial infrastructure were incapacitated at the time of the incidence. KDN’s CEO, Mr Shahab Meshki, called for stringent penalties for vandals.

“There needs to be stiffer penalties for cases of vandalism and/or unwarranted cuts to curb unnecessary disruptions caused to the business community,” he said in a statement released on Wednesday.