Internet outage: How vulnerable are companies in South Africa?

Multiple subsea cable breaks played havoc with internet connectivity in South Africa on Thursday.

The outage affected everything from banks and mobile network providers, to Microsoft services.

RELATED: Microsoft confirms some services are down

How exactly did the internet 'break' and how vulnerable are we to this type of disruption to our lives?

Bruce Whitfield chats to Arthur Goldstuck, founder and CEO of World Wide Worx.

The main cause was three major cables that feed the West Coast of Africa and Southern Africa going down simultaneously, Goldstuck says.

"We don't know why they went down, but when multiple cables go down simultaneously, it usually means that there's been some kind of incident at sea like an underwater earthquake or rockfall."

"There's another cable feeding this part of the world called the Equiano cable which Google act laid down... That wasn't affected; it's clearly part of a different route."

 Arthur Goldstuck, CEO - World Wide Worx

Goldstuck explains that when cables are laid down, it requires a survey of the sea floor to ascertain what is the best route in order to avoid obstacles like rocky areas.

Typically, everybody finds the same easy route and it is just by good fortune that the Equiano cable didn't follow the same one, he goes on.

The scenario gets worse however, says Goldstuck.

"What's also happened in the last week or so is that on the east coast of Africa going up through the Red Sea, the undersea cable connecting the SEACOM cable... suddenly was out, not in its own right but in terms of its connection going to Europe through the Red Sea."

"People were blaming the Houthi rebels for their bombing activity on ships there...so that still hasn't been repaired and chances are are it's going to take a while."

 Arthur Goldstuck, CEO - World Wide Worx

The previous time we had this kind of incident it took a few weeks for the repair ship to get to the site and fix the cable, Goldstuck cautions.

The longer-term effect on businesses depends on which cables they have contracts with and where they're connecting from, he says.

Goldstuck points out that while Standard Bank and FNB's connectivity did go down for a while, it returned again as they obviously have backup services.

"They call it redundancy, where they can connect up to multiple cables, but not many businesses do that."

"If you're a cybersecurity company for example, you might make sure that you are on all of those undersea cables. Chances are, you'll still be connected. With a bank, you'll probably have two or three redundancies."

"But the smaller outfits are going to be affected for much longer. And I'm afraid if you play Call of Duty for example, you're going to be in trouble for the next few days trying to get properly connected."

 Arthur Goldstuck, CEO - World Wide Worx

For more detail, listen to the interview audio at the top of the article