![\"Rupert](\"http:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/Rupert-Bryant-portrait.jpg\" "\\"Rupert")
Rupert Bryant<\/p><\/div>\n
\u201cThe EIG system is used by most SA Internet Service Providers to backhaul SAT3 to London and as such took down a lot of the SA SAT3 capacity,\u201d Bryant said.<\/p>\n
Asked whether the outage was indeed planned, Bryant explained that there was maintenance scheduled on segment 2.3 of the EIG system for 29 June 2012. \u201cThis segment is not used in the backhaul from Sesimbra, Portugal to London (2.1 and 2.2) and the work was not expected to impact these services,\u201d Bryant added.<\/p>\n
The cable operator then issued Emergency Planned Maintenance notices at 02:00 GMT on the morning of the 29th shortly before powering down segments 2.1 and 2.2, taking down the London route.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis unfortunately didn\u2019t give operators enough time to schedule work windows and send out notifications or make alternate plans for routes,\u201d Bryant said.<\/p>\n
Telkom explained that the repair of EIG required extensive power feeding interruptions during the initial part of the maintenance operation. The power feeding was reconfigured early on Sunday morning (1 July 2012) to enable traffic between Portugal and London, Telkom said, while the cable ship continued to perform the repair work on EIG.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo further significant interruptions are expected until 5 July when the power needs to the normalised,\u201d Telkom said. \u201cThis will probably result in an outage of between 4 to 6 hours.\u201d<\/p>\n
With all the undersea cables that have come online in South Africa, could Internet Service Providers (ISPs) not have been better prepared for this outage?<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile hind-sight is always 20\/20, EIG probably could have been better with their communication to other cable operators,\u201d Bryant said.<\/p>\n
Bryant said that over the last few years the networks of local ISPs have become increasingly resilient to single system failures with the landing of cables such as EASSy and Seacom.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith WACS currently getting deployed that trend is set to increase,\u201d Bryant said. WACS is another undersea cable system off Africa\u2019s West coast for which a launch event was recently held.<\/p>\n
\u201cSAT3 and EIG have both been very stable cable systems over the last few years and as the main cable coming into Cape Town the local ISPs\u2019 dependency on this route is still very high,\u201d Bryant said.<\/p>\n
In future, Bryant said that WACS would allow most of the networks to run diverse routes out of Cape Town cost effectively, and will allow for better preparedness for this sort of failure.<\/p>\n
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