noticeboard.ru.ac.za

The fibre optic cable connecting Kimberly dining hall to the rest of campus appears to have been damaged. As a result those parts of the network connecting via Kimberly dining hall currenly have no access to the University's network. This includes Cullen Bowles, Goldfields, De Beers, Thomas Pringle, and Piet Retief houses as well as wireless networking supplied from Kimberly hall.

We are still awaiting confirmation of the extent of the damage from out network technicians. It is likely, however, that repairing the damaged fibre optic cable will require the services of external contractors located in Durban. As a result it may be several days before connectivity to the affected areas is restored.

Any users in the affected areas who require connectivity for critical University functions that can't either wait a few days or be performed from other areas of campus (for example other offices or the public labs) should contact User Support on 8288.

Further updates will be posted here as and when they become available.

The fibre optic cable running past LIRI has been completely severed by one of the building subcontractors working on the African Media Matrix and all fibre optic pairs in the cable will need to be spliced. Since there are no undamaged pairs we're unable to reroute traffic as an interim measure. This means that Kimberly hall won't get connectivity back until we're able to splice the cable.

The external contractor has indicated that if there are flights available they'll fly down from Durban tomorrow and, depending on the time of the flight, perform the repairs tomorrow afternoon or Wednesday. We're still awaiting confirmation that they've managed to secure a flight.

A fibre optics specialist should be arriving at 10AM this morning to start repairing the damaged fibre optic cable. It is expected that the repairs will take several hours to complete.