Internet users in Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda and Uganda have complained of poor connectivity, as service providers across East Africa acknowledge there is a problem.
They said they are working to fix it.
The patchy service was due to faults in the undersea cables that connect the region to the rest of the world via South Africa, industry expert Ben Roberts told the BBC.
A similar outage occurred in parts of western and southern Africa in March.
Cloudflare Radar, which monitors internet connectivity, said Tanzania was one of the worst affected countries, with traffic falling to 30% of expected levels.
The Tanzanian newspaper Citizen described what happened as an ‘internet blackout’ [that] has affected major network channels”.
On X, formerly known as Twitter, service providers answer questions from frustrated customers.
In response to a Kenyan user who wanted to know if he would be able to watch the match between Manchester United and Arsenal in the English Premier League, Airtel Kenya said its team was working on the “network issue” and apologized.
Safaricom, also in Kenya, said it was “experiencing a challenge”.
Airtel Ugandan has said it is aware of the “intermittent internet service”. And MTN Rwanda said there was “a matter of deterioration in international ties”.
Malawi, Mozambique and Madagascar have also been affected, according to Cloudflare Radar.
Mr Roberts, of pan-African company Liquid Intelligent Technologies, said he had confirmed that a cable running along the coast of East Africa, known as Eassy, had been damaged earlier on Sunday about 45km north of south was cut through. African port city of Durban.
Another cable was also cut. He ruled out the idea that it could have been sabotage, saying it was more likely an unfortunate coincidence.
There are also other cables available connecting East Africa to Europe and gradually the service should improve as the data is rerouted. But because many major companies have data centers in South Africa, the damage to the vital connection that Eassy provides had a major impact.
In March, widespread outages were reported in South Africa, Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Benin, Ghana and Burkina Faso, among others.
This was also attributed to cable failures. The cause was not clear, but led to the frustration of millions of customers across the continent.
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