Cut cable disrupts Internet in East Africa

High-speed Internet access in East Africa has been severely disrupted by a ship dropping its anchor onto fiber-optic cables off Kenya's coast, officials said. The ship was waiting to enter the busy port of Mombasa, Kenya's second-largest city, when it dropped anchor in a restricted area, the BBC reported Monday. The East African Marine Systems, owners of the cable, said it could take 14 days to repair. The cable is one of three that have been providing high-speed Internet to the region since 2009. Internet service providers and mobile phone operators have re-routed their services to another cable that was not damaged by the dropped anchor but have only secured a small amount of bandwidth because of cost, officials said. Internet connections are expected to slow down by 20 percent in Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania, Ethiopia and South Sudan's capital, Juba, the BBC reported.