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IOL Online are reporting "South African Internet users have been battling to get their online work done since Monday, after the Seacom telecoms cable experienced a submarine failure.

And while Seacom has started emergency repair procedures to correct the problem, it could take more than a week before service is restored.

Seacom says investigations have indicated that a repeater failed on segment nine of the cable, which is off-shore to the north of Mombasa, Kenya.

A repair ship had been sent to the area of the fault to pick up the cable, which would be brought aboard so the faulty repeater could be replaced.

Seacom's undersea fibre-optic cable, which links South and East Africa to global networks through India and Europe, went live a year ago, giving a major boost to Africa's international connectivity by providing high-capacity bandwidth.

Service provider MWeb, which uses Seacom as its primary provider of international bandwidth, reported securing alternative capacity on the SAIX network from Monday afternoon to about 2pm yesterday. But hours before the Netherlands versus Uruguay match, SAIX withdrew the capacity due to concerns over its bandwidth commitments to Fifa for the World Cup."