The fault on the leased line between Malawi SDNP and Malawi Telecom's Stadium Exchange was cleared by Malawi Telecom Ltd (MTL) staff on Saturday 15 July 2000 around 12:30 pm. This leased line connects Malawi SDNP to UUNET and hence to the global Internet. It is the primary gateway connection for Malawi SDNP.

MTL staff informed Malawi SDNP that the fault was caused by water that sipped through the casing for a joint on the cable carrying lines to Malawi SDNP thereby soaking the joint and lowering the line to earth and the inter-line resistance. This was what caused the quality of the line to degrade heavily as was observed.

On Saturday 15 July 2000, the casing was opened by MTL staff and the water drained. The joint was left open to dry by natural means. We were informed that the casing would be replaced and sealed properly later to keep out any more water leaks.

The quality of the link to UUNET improved immediately after the fault was cleared. Packet loss dropped from above 40% to around 3%. Malawi SDNP then resumed normal operations by putting all the configuration parameters, which were changed to cope with the harzadous conditions, back to normal values for operating on a good and a friendly circuit.

SDNP staff knocked off around 4pm on this Saturday  after making extensive observations which all turned out to show normal operations.

Contact: Malawi SDNP Coordinator, P/B 303, Blantyre 3, Tel: 674979 / 675872 / 824787, Fax: 673944,  E-Mail: mwsdnp@sdnp.org.mw, Web: http://www.sdnp.org.mw