Slow Internet expected as cable firm starts maintenance works

By Standard Reporter

Preventive maintenance works on the East African Marine Systems (Teams) cable aimed at reinforcing its protection at Mombasa Off-Shore against external aggression are planned for January – April next year. 

The actual downtime of the system will be from January 3rd – 15th, next year while works will be carried out from January 16th towards the end of April and will not affect the service according to Teams General Manager Joel Tanui.

Tanui said customers are likely to experience slow Internet speeds during the works due to bandwidth constraints as result of limited traffic restoration via other cables.

The preventive maintenance works have been designed to reduce chances of cable damage by external aggressors, following the couple of cable cuts experienced by Teams cable at Mombasa, early this year. 

 “This planned cable reinforcement works are designed to increase resilience of the Teams cable against external aggression by ship vessels and fishing boats,” said Tanui. “The timing for first week of January 2013 has been specifically chosen to coincide with the slack period at the beginning of the year to minimise impact on live traffic.”

He however added that only the first two weeks will have the heaviest impact on traffic.

 It is estimated that the works, including costs for temporary traffic restoration via other cables during the Teams cable outage will about $5.6 million (Sh480 million), excluding loss of business as a result of heavily constrained bandwidth supply to contracted customers. A landmark public-private partnership, TEAMS is the premier undersea cable system serving the entire East African region.

Besides Government, other shareholders in  Teams consortium include Safaricom, Jamii Telecom, Wananchi Group, Essar Kenya, Kenya Data Networks, Access Kenya, Telkom Orange and Bandwidth andCloud Services.