Internet users in Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda and Uganda have complained about poor connectivity, as service providers across East Africa acknowledge there is a problem.
They said they are working to fix this.
The irregular service was the result of failures in the submarine cables that connect the region to the rest of the world via South Africa, industry expert Ben Roberts told the BBC.
A similar outage occurred in parts of West and Southern Africa in March.
Cloudflare Radar, which monitors internet connectivity, said Tanzania was one of the worst-affected countries, with traffic falling to 30% of expected levels.
Tanzania’s Citizen newspaper described what happened as an “internet blackout” [that] affected the network’s main channels.”
On X, formerly known as Twitter, service providers have been fielding questions from frustrated customers.
In response to a Kenyan user who wanted to know if they would be able to watch the Manchester United vs Arsenal English Premier League game, Airtel Kenya said its team was working on the “network issue” and apologized.
Safaricom, also in Kenya, said it was “experiencing a challenge”.
Airtel Ugandan said it was aware of the “intermittent internet service”. And MTN Rwanda said there was “an issue of degradation of international connections”.
Malawi, Mozambique and Madagascar were also affected, according to Cloudflare Radar.
Roberts, of pan-African firm Liquid Intelligent Technologies, said he had confirmed that a cable running along the coast of East Africa, known as Eassy, was cut on Sunday, about 45 kilometers (28 miles) north of South Africa. . African port city of Durban.
Another cable was also cut. He dismissed the idea that it could be sabotage and said it was a rather unfortunate coincidence.
Other cables connecting East Africa to Europe are also available and the service should gradually improve as data is rerouted. But as many large companies have data centers in South Africa, the damage to the vital link that Eassy provides has had a major impact.
In March, widespread outages were reported in countries such as South Africa, Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Benin, Ghana and Burkina Faso.
This was also attributed to cable failures. The cause was unclear, but it led to the frustration of millions of customers across the continent.
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