Maputo — Mozambique's publicly-owned telecommunications company, TDM, announced on Thursday that normal communications between the north and south of the country have returned to normal, despite the break in the TDM undersea cable..

The cut in the cable occurred on 17 July about seven kilometres south of the city of Xai-Xai, where the cable is under 25 to 30 metres of water.

The disruption to normal economic life everywhere north of Xai-Xai was substantial. Citizen found that their cell phones no longer worked, and that Internet access was suddenly impossible. TDM resorted to microwave and satellite links, but warned that these "will only guarantee a minimum of communication".

Traffic has been restored because TDM is installing a second cable, this time on shore. The section between Maputo and Xai-Xai was completed on Tuesday, and this has allowed communications throughout the country to return to normal.

Meanwhile, the undersea cable remains damaged south of Xai-Xai. Repairing it is expected to happen some time in the next six weeks.

TDM is working to build redundancy into the system so that anytime one cable suffers a breakdown, traffic can flow into another. The alternative link between Maputo and Beira should be operational by mid-September.

The TDM statement declared that the company remains determined "to endow the country with a reliable and robust National Transmission Network, with the necessary inbuilt redundancy, and in support of the development of Mozambican communications".