By SEACOM

SEACOM experienced an interruption in its service on 14 April 2010 which lasted around seven minutes as a result of a fault on the Mediterranean section of the SEA-ME-WE 4 submarine cable system, which SEACOM currently utilizes to connect to London.

SEA-ME-WE 4, which stretches from South East Asia to Europe via the Indian Sub-Continent and Middle East, was initially scheduled to undergo repairs to fix the affected fibre pair in the Mediterranean Sea on Saturday 17 April 2010 but this was subsequently rescheduled to Saturday 24 April 2010. However, due to ongoing maintenance activity on another cable network servicing Africa and poor weather in the Mediterranean Sea, the actual work only began on Sunday 25 April 2010 resulting in the SEACOM service experiencing interruptions from around mid-day on Sunday.

The ongoing repair work is affecting several cable systems and has impacted negatively on the overall Internet connectivity in many regions across the Middle East, Africa and Asia, which rely to some extent on the availability of the SEA-ME-WE 4 cable for global connectivity.

Operators that have opted to work with SEACOM to find alternative channels have been routed to an Internet Access point in India to maintain service. The repair work is managed and controlled by SEA-ME-WE 4 who has indicated that the repair window may be extended to Friday 30 April 2010 for reasons unknown to SEACOM at this point. SEACOM will continue to provide updates as more information becomes available.