Johannesburg – It will take another 10 days to repair the damaged parts of the Seacom data cable, lying nearly 5km deep off Africa's east coast.

The weather, the depth of the fault and the parts needed are all delaying the repair process, said Seacom. July 22 was the earliest date by which repairs could be completed.

The undersea cable has been out of operation since Monday July 5, and has been disrupting international internet operations.

Seacom first said that repairing it would take just over a week, but problems related to the process have affected this forecast.

A highly specialised ship and technical team will perform the task.

Many service providers have negotiated alternative access from other suppliers of international bandwidth, with the Telkom-controlled Sat-3 cable carrying most of the extra international internet traffic.

Seacom said it will support its clients in procuring additional capacity for the duration of the repair work.

On Friday internet service provider MWEB, which depends largely on Seacom and which experienced connectivity problems last week, said that its services were again operational. MWEB said it had co-operated with Seacom to stabilise its network by identifying alternative options to ensure the additional international excess capacity