Slow internet speeds across East Africa will persist in the coming days as a deep-sea fibre cut affects cable services in Kenya, according to a statement issued by the Communications Authority of Kenya (CA) on Monday.

According to CA Director General David Mugonyi, the intermittent data outage and traffic jams that have affected a number of Kenyan submarine cables, including Seacom and the East African Submarine System (Eassy), were caused by a deep-sea fibre cut at the Mtunzini teleport station.

"We wish inform individual and corporate consumers that the recovery process has since commenced but Internet intermittency and slow speeds may remain in the coming few days before services are fully restored," the Authority said. 

To address the slow speeds, the Authority stated that it is closely monitoring the situation to ensure that incoming and outbound internet connectivity is available, while also directing service providers to secure alternative routes for their traffic.

"The East Africa Marine System (TEAMS) cable, which has not been affected by the cut, is currently being utilized for local traffic flow while redundancy on the South Africa route has been activated to minimize the impact," the Authority added.