If your internet connectivity proved spotty over the past weekend, it was the result of a recent breakage to the West Africa Cable System’s (WACS) undersea cable. This is the same cable with caused so many issues at the beginning of the year and took several weeks to repair.

While this has left some internet service providers (ISPs) scrambling to find a workaround, Liquid Telecom says it has been able to mitigate these issues, and wants to assure its customers that its network remains stable and unencumbered.

“To help ensure continuity of service, Liquid Telecom’s network traffic is automatically re-routed during such outages. We are responding to new and increased demand from customers with additional capacity across alternate routes,” explains Reshaad Sha, CEO of Liquid Telecom South Africa.

“Liquid Telecom operates a five-cable system for our international internet capacity in South Africa. Our resilient architecture means the loss of the WACS capacity is unlikely to impact customers’ connectivity as demand surges,” he adds.

This as the firm made several core network enhancements towards the end of last year in a bid to offer its customers far greater bandwidth capacity.

“The replacement of our core network has not only catered to legacy performance issues but has made Liquid Telecom’s network one of the most technologically advanced, modern and reliable networks in South Africa and across the African continent. It has also addressed one of the core needs of local enterprises around network capacity,” notes Sha.

Along with addressing the need for increased capacity, the telecoms service provider has also developed a chatbot to help customers in real-time should the need arise. Designed to handle customer queries, Liquid tells us that the chatbot was created to more accurately mimic human conversations when dealing with customers.

Given the current COVID-19 pandemic that the country is dealing with at the moment, as well as the national lockdown forcing many to work from home and resulting in increased pressure on network capacities, Liquid Telecom says it is primed to handle the demands of the coming weeks and months.

With many people relying heavily on their ability to work at home during these testing times, we certainly hope so.

“We will continue to do what it takes to ensure continuity of service, particularly as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak, which is forcing many of us to work, communicate and collaborate remotely,” the firm concluded.