There are 3 lines which Telkom use, C-Com, SAT-2 and SAT-3. The majority of Telkom’s clients are all on the SAT-3 lines, hence why some people around Cape Town were unaffected.
 

Telkom had scheduled maintenance on the SAT-3 lines early this morning which went ahead as planned and were completed. An hour or so afterwards, there was a power failure in Nigeria which powers these SAT-3 Lines and caused issues with them which Telkom had to rectify.
 

There is no guarantee whether it will be up the whole day, we even may experience HIGH latency from time to time. Below is an email which was sent from Telkom.
 

“ Telkom are working on under sea cables today, so expect problems with internet connection.

MSN is not working and Skype is slow, most international sites are having problems being accessed due to the faulty cable. 

Notice Ref:      NN0004294

Failure Type:    Fault condition

Status:             In progress

 Problem Description:     Link – SAT – 3 normalisation in progress. 5 minute breaks to traffic or slow response to traffic until 17:00 on 02/02/2010.

Impact:                No Connectivity

Time Down:        2010-02-02/06:32

Time Up:             2010-02-02/00:00

Sites:                  NNOC

Cause:                Degraded Cable

ETTR:                 > 24 Hours 

Progress:             The SAT – 3 cable is degraded due to a suspected power problem between Abidjan and Lagos.