If you are anything like us, then you can probably bear a few weeks of isolation at home – at least as long as you have a stable internet connection. Adding insult to injury, at the end of last week the West Africa Cable System (WACS) undersea cable once again was damaged, affecting connection speeds for South Africans. It could not have come at a worse time, as those who can turn to remote working to continue their business or jobs.

The good news is that it looks like the interruption will be short lived, or minimised entirely.

According to Liquid Telecom South Africa, network outages have been mitigated. “To help ensure continuity of service, Liquid Telecom’s network traffic is automatically re-routed during such outages,” commented Reshaad Sha, CEO Liquid Telecom South Africa. 

“We are responding to new and increased demand from customers with additional capacity across alternate routes. Liquid Telecom operates a five-cable system for our international internet capacity in South Africa. Our resilient architecture means the loss of the WACS capacity is unlikely to impact customers’ connectivity as demand surges,” he explained.

Sha’s reassurance that the company has measures in place to minimise downtime makes sense. After all, it was only late last year that the company detailed how it is aiming to strengthen its foothold in the local market and ramp up its competitiveness. To that end it  announced advanced core network enhancements that could offer customers near unlimited bandwidth capacity.

“The replacement of our core network has not only catered to legacy performance issues but has made Liquid Telecom’s network one of the most technologically advanced, modern and reliable networks in South Africa and across the African continent. It has also addressed one of the core needs of local enterprises around network capacity,” asserted Sha.

The company further reassured that its focus today is the same hasn’t changed. “We’re committed to ensuring our customers have access to the most reliable network and digital solutions — now and in the weeks and months to come. Keeping our customers connected is and has always been our number one priority. We will continue to do what it takes to ensure continuity of service, particularly as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak, which is forcing many of us to work, communicate and collaborate remotely,” he concluded.