After weeks of frustration and high-latency issues, Electronic Arts (EA) surfaced with an explanation for the persistent high ping affecting players of ‘EA SPORTS FC 24’ in South Africa and neighbouring regions.
EA explains cause behind ‘EA SPORTS FC 24’ high ping issue
In a statement to Swisher Post, Steph Leung, EA’s Senior Player Engagement Lead for the APAC region, recently addressed the issue, attributing the high ping to damage to undersea cables that occurred near the coast of Côte d’Ivoire on 14 March 2024.
The damage, believed to be caused by an undersea landslide, impacted four major cables—WACS, MainOne, SAT-3, and ACE—disrupting internet infrastructure across West Africa.
In response, EA has rerouted players to alternate data centres in an effort to improve connectivity while repairs are underway.
“An update will be provided in this thread if available, and players are encouraged to keep an eye on local internet service provider status updates and news stories regarding the restoration of internet services in the area,” the statement read.
Latest update on undersea cable repairs
Repair efforts are being coordinated with several ships tasked with addressing the various cable breaks.
The Leon Thevenin is handling the SAT-3 cable repairs, expected to be completed by mid-April.
Meanwhile, the C.S. Sovereign is set to repair the MainOne, WACS, and ACE cables, with all repairs scheduled for completion by early May.
Internet providers affected by the outage include major names such as Mweb, Openserve, Seacom, and Telkom.
Frustrated players are not buying it
Despite EA’s explanations and the extensive repair operations, many players remain sceptical.
“I don’t really see what that has to do with our connection to a server that is in our region,” one user wrote in the forum.
Some forum users have pointed out that the timing of the cable damage and the onset of connectivity issues do not align, questioning why only EA SPORTS FC 24 is affected while other online games operate normally.
“I’m sorry but I don’t buy this excuse that it’s due to undersea cable damage. The cables got damaged a whole two weeks before the problem started in South Africa. If that was the case then why is it only FC24 that has an issue with high ping ? Every other online game I play is completely fine,” another user said.
