As East African internet outages continue, the Rwandan government told telecommunications operators and ISPs on Monday to “provide seamless redundancy and diversity of internet bandwidth to guarantee service”.
This move will benefit users who have suffered over the past three weeks, since underwater fiber optic cables were clipped.
“This will allow automatic sharing of bandwidth between operators at pre-negotiated prices to avoid service interruptions in case of any breakdown,” the government said in a statement.
“The Rwanda Utilities Regulatory Authority (RURA) will institute a settlement system in the next few days to allow inter-operator bandwidth backup and seamless routing once any operator’s available bandwidth reduces to a pre-determined threshold,” it added.
The move comes as telecom operators struggle to provide services to customers since the EASSY cable was cut between Djibouti and Port Sudan on 17 February carrying around 80% of traffic.
Kenyan sources believe it could take up to three weeks before service is restored. Rwanda and Zimbabwe have been hit hardest, while in Kenya and Uganda other cables have carried traffic, albeit at slower speeds.
Joseph Mayton
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