Users in Africa may be unable to access multiple Microsoft 365 services or features

Title: Users in Africa may be unable to access multiple Microsoft 365 services or features

User impact: Users in Africa may be unable to access multiple Microsoft 365 services or features.

Current status: Our telemetry indicates that application performance remains stable for services, as load-balancing efforts continue. We’ll be working over the weekend to source more capacity in preparation for higher traffic as core business hours resume on Monday, March 18, 2024.

Additionally, we’ve re-enabled Azure Front Door (AFD) routing within the South Africa region and are continuing to monitor for any disruptions in service, though we are observing stable performance.

Scope of impact: The issue primarily impacts users within the Africa region. However, users in other geographic locations may be impacted if their connections are routed through impacted networking components.

Start time: Thursday, March 14, 2024, at 10:30 AM UTC

Preliminary root cause: Multiple major fiber cables which manage requests in and out of the Africa region are broken.

Next update by: Monday, March 18, 2024, at 9:00 AM UTC