Deepest Darkest Africa Is Living Up To It's Name
Having no basics like the Internet and Electricity is a common theme which is not something you would expect if you lived elsewhere.
This having no internet is an issue that plagues us online users in South Africa periodically and when it goes down it normally is for a few days or less. The last big outage was around 2 months ago and I suppose we were due for some chaos because that was sorted out very quickly. At around 3pm this afternoon there was no internet and there still is none in Johannesburg. It does not seem to matter what service provider you are with either. The office at work which runs on a separate network provider had zero connectivity and the home had nothing either besides having to hotspot being your only solution. Work however is more of a issue and hot spotting should not be the answer.
Yesterday there was seismic activity on the East coast of Africa and apparently two of the undersea cables were damaged. There are another two more cables damaged in the Red Sea which limits the work around solutions. This puts pressure on the West Coast cables as this is like a highway with this being the only route left open resulting in congestion and slower service speeds. The West coast cables thankfully were finally repaired in March this year finishing an operation that has been ongoing on and off for the last 4 years. Cable breaks are very regular being caused by ship anchors, rocks moving on the ocean floor due to seismic activity and yes the conflict in the Red Sea area being blamed, but I do struggle with that one unless they are being purposely targeted.
One can understand the disruption this is doing not only to businesses, but the general way of life we have all been accustomed to. My television is internet based and without this it is a paper weight. The entire infrastructure today is all geared around online and when that is shut down almost everything comes to a grinding halt. The entire country is vulnerable because in theory the country could be shut down rather easily with someone who has some technical know how.
Checking our service providers website tonight it looks as though the Johannesburg region is entirely down and we have to wait on updates. There is one solution I would love to be using and that is not available being Starlink.
According to the heat map detector not much is working in Johannesburg.
South Africa has stated Starlink needs regulatory approval and we all know what that means and they would like to see some money upfront first. There are some Starlinks operational which apparently will have their roaming signal turned off within 60 days. Namibia, South Africa, Botswana and Zimbabwe have made the Starlink illegal with one Zimbabwean user being imprisoned last week.
Starlink is only available in 8 countries in Africa with users in South Africa piggy backing off Malawi. They rent the units from Starlink Malawi, but the roaming signal will not be of any use come June the 4th which is the planed cut off date. The cost is actually very good in comparison to other services with a outlay of around R13K or $650 for the equipment followed by around R2k monthly or $100 which is roughly $70 cheaper per month than what we currently pay. I know I would not hesitate and if I could would have one tomorrow.