*MOMBASA, 17th May 2012...* Repair works on the TEAMS (The East African Marine Systems) Cable that was damaged on 26th April 2012 have now been completed. The cable cut which occurred at the Kenyan coast damaged a crucial link for the bulk of internet and international voice traffic in the region. The repair works were successfully completed by a team of experts from France Telecom Marine Services at 4:00pm on 17th May 2012. Commenting on the repairs work, TEAMS General Manager Joel Tanui said, “This second cut was due to the multiple damages inflicted on the TEAMS undersea cable by a port dredging ship in February this year. In this instance we had to engage professional divers to ensure that all the damaged portions of the cable were properly replaced. In order to reduce the down time of the cable the TEAMS Cable consortium constituting both the Kenyan shareholders and UAE’s Etisalat made a decision to secure an cable repair ship from France Telecom Marine Services, as all the cable ships for our undersea maintenance company E-Marine were tied up with the repairs of other damaged cables (EASSY, EIG, SMW3,). The repair cable ship arrived in Mombasa on 12th May 2012 and started the repair work the following day”. TEAMS Board Chairman, Bob Collymore said, “We are deeply grateful for the patience that our shareholders and customers have shown during this time. The TEAMS board is now considering taking additional measures to guarantee the stability of the cable system by splitting the cable in the deep sea so as to have two separate landing points that will serve to mitigate the risks associated with the current Mombasa landing point. ” It is estimated that the repairs of the cable, including costs for temporary traffic restoration via other cables during the TEAMS cable outage is about USD 3 Million (Kshs 250 Million), excluding loss of business as a result of heavily constrained bandwidth supply to contracted customers. A landmark public-private partnership, TEAMS is the premier undersea cable system serving the entire East African region. Besides the Government of Kenya, the other shareholders in the TEAMS consortium include Safaricom, Jamii Telecom, Wananchi Group, Essar Kenya, Kenya Data Networks, Access Kenya, Telkom Orange and Bandwidth & Cloud Services.