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Cape Town – MultiChoice got hit by a major overnight channels outage on its DStv satellite pay-TV platform on Friday night that DStv subscribers described as a "nightmare" and that saw several channels cut out for hours after a fibre optics cable was accidentally cut.
All off DStv channels were restored after 08:00 on Saturday morning.
MultiChoice tells Channel24 that "construction work close to our Randburg offices damages one of our fibre optic cables carrying data for some M-Net, Mzansi Magic and SuperSport channels. Our technicians worked through the night to restore our customers' viewing".
MultiChoice in response to a media enquiry says all channels have now been restored and that it thanks customers for their understanding.
While MultiChoice's "nightmare" as DStv subscribers labelled the blackout was primarily focused around M-Net's channels, the channel blackout affected other non-M-Net channels as well.
The high definition (HD) M-Net supplied channels like VUZU AMP (DStv 103), M-Net Movies Premiere (DStv 104) and Mzansi Magic (DStv 161) were restored by 01:00 on Saturday morning.
Meanwhile other M-Net channels on DStv like VUZU (DStv 116), M-Net Movies Action (DStv 110) and M-Net Movies All Stars (DStv 111) continued to be off air.
MultiChoice's problem wasn't contained to just just M-Net channels, as various others channels ranging from general entertainment channels like e.tv (DStv 194) froze and went blank to news channels like CNN International (DStv 401) pixelating, distorting and cutting out.
By 07:00 on Saturday morning MultiChoice told DStv subscribers on the company's Facebook page that "a handful of channels have not been restored - our techies are hoping to get these up soon".
An hour later, just after 08:00 on Saturday morning, MultiChoice told DStv subscribers on Facebook that "we're pleased to confirm that all channels have been restored and the gremlins banished. Many thanks for your patience."
MultiChoice is in the process of switching to new satellite capacity on the Intelsat 36 satellite that was successfully launched at the end of August.
