Internet Outage in East Africa: Impacts and Implications on Businesses and the Economy – And What Are the Alternatives?
Recently, an unfortunate event disrupted the digital space in East Africa. According to an editorial on citizendigital, East Africa experienced substantial internet disruptions due to a significant cut in a sub-sea fibre cable. This incident resulted in widespread internet outages and a decrease in speed affecting both Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and end users from East to South Africa.
Broad Stroke of the Internet Outage Event
The faults were specifically noted in the Eastern Africa Submarine Cable System (EASSy) and the Seacom cables. Moreover, simultaneous observations of faults in two other key submarine cables – the EIG and AAE1 situated in the Red Sea – are still unrepaired.
- This incident highlights the fragility and critical importance of submarine cables in maintaining internet connectivity.
- It also underscores ongoing challenges in infrastructural resilience in the region.
The chief casualty of this calamity was the regional telecom giant – Safaricom. Despite their efforts to minimise service interruption, users were warned of potential reduced internet speeds during the interim period.
The Impact on Businesses and the Economy
This outage illustrates how reliant businesses have become on the internet to remain functional and competitive.
As a robust customer data and lead generation platform, DukaBrain notes how such interruptions could affect businesses:
- Decreased Productivity and Operational Efficiencies: Companies that rely on internet connectivity for operations would experience decreased productivity.
- Lower Customer Engagement: Businesses use social media channels for advertising and interacting with customers effectively. Reduced internet speed limits businesses' ability to promptly respond to customers' inquiries, deliver personalised offers, and receive feedback.
- Lower Sales: Decreased customer engagement can result in lower sales and revenue.
- Damaging Brand Reputation: Persistent internet disruptions could potentially harm a company's reputation, impacting the trust and loyalty of customers.
Financially, it's difficult to calculate the exact cost of these outages for our economy. Yet, considering the digital reliance of businesses, it's safe to say that both the direct and opportunity costs are substantial.
The Silver Lining: Exploring Internet Alternatives
The experience has unmasked the severity of sole dependence on terrestrial internet services and the need for viable alternatives. One such exciting initiative is SpaceX's Starlink, a constellation of thousands of mass-produced small satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO). It aims to provide satellite internet connectivity to underserved areas of the planet.
Given the frequency and duration of terrestrial internet disruptions, Starlink presents a potential backup, enhancing connectivity resilience. As businesses seek to mitigate such internet-based crises in the future, the adoption and take-up of services such as Starlink may indeed rise rapidly.
Final Thoughts
To ensure that our economy is more resilient to these shocks, it's a call to policymakers, businesses, and individuals alike to explore alternatives and backups like Starlink.
This outage should be a wake-up call for us all. Our digital economy must develop redundancy measures and crisis plans for such events to minimise the impact on businesses and individuals who use the internet as a vital service.
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