We reported last week that TelOne internet significantly slowed down for several days last week due to fibre cable damage in Mozambique. We’re getting updates this week, that while the problem is now fixed, it’s not just TelOne that was affected by the issue. PowerTel and Utande were affected too, and from what we gather, in a much more severe way.
Internet Access Providers, PowerTel and Utande were totally out for a total of 40 hours during the Telecomunicações de Moçambique (TDM) outage, says a source authoritatively informed on the problem. Internet Service Providers getting wholesale international bandwidth from these providers were, as a result, also affected.
Now, as if last week’s outage wasn’t bad enough, we’re also getting reports that ongoing roadwork to upgrade the Harare–Mutare highway to a dual carriageway is damaging underground fibre cables installed along highway. These fibre cables connect to the TDM cable network at Zimbabwe’s border with Mozambique in Mutare. TDM further connects the Zimbabwean operators to the SEACOM and EASSy cables in Maputo.
So far we know that the TelOne cable has been damaged at least once this week by the roadwork, and chances are they are not the only ones affected as there are a number of operators with underground cables running along the same route.
Our emails to providers to determine the extent of the disruption that’s being caused by the road dualisation, and to establish what plans are in place to resolve this problem, have so far not been responded to.
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6 comments
poor planning by the gvt
As at 5pm, Friday 18th, ADSL down here in Mutare has been useless since midday today. Uncapped ADSL premium package not delivering more than 100kbps, average around 40kbps. TelOne response? Eish, the cable in Moz is damaged!
Just Called telone today for an enquiry about their dead slow internet a few minuites ago,,,,, was told their engineers are not in today?????????????
I was surprised to hear from your report that the cut was in mozambique yet i was told by telone technicians that it was the cut in Ruwa where they are dualising the road that caused everything,in fact 3 times last week we were down because of this,they would fix this overnight though but sometimes they would connect us via vsat/mazoe earth station hence the very and unreliable speeds oftentimes…i think the mocambican story is just but a smokescreen by telone and no coincidence that the cuts hapened simultaneously in Ruwa and mocambique,…they are veryn slow to react tho…in fact the telone techs here in marondera laugh abt it,abt the incompetence and lack of knowhow of their fellow colleagues in hre..they admit the training has been somewhat iffy to date…they hardly know how to respond and fix things wen they go awry…these guys are basically installers with minimal tech knowhow…their words not mine!..God bless this country!