Submarine Cable Cuts: Poor Internet May Persist For 3 Weeks –Experts

The disruption in Internet services currently experienced by some Internet Service Providers may extend for the next three weeks, experts assessment has shown.
Recall that in the early hours of Thursday, March 14, 2024, the banking sector and telecom industry, among others were partially grounded due to internet disruption.
Customers of the banking and telecom industries
were informed that they may not be able to carry out financial transactions due to network issue.

LEADERSHIP that the internet outage was as a result of an external incident that resulted in a cut on Mainone and other companies’ submarine cable system, in the Atlantic Ocean offshore Cote D’Ivoire, along the coast of West Africa.
MainOne, one of the undersea cable companies affected by the service disruptions , said in an update on Saturday that the situation might persist for two to three weeks for the problem to be fixed.
It explained that investigations revealed that the fault came from an external incident that resulted in a cut on the submarine cable system in the ocean.
MainOne said the rectification of the fault, retrieving necessary spares required for repair, “sailing to the fault location for the repair work might take one to two weeks, while about two to three weeks of transit time may be required for the vessel to pick up the spares and travel from Europe to West Africa once the vessel is mobilised.”

Massive internet outages have been reported in Nigeria following damage to international undersea cables supplying the country with connectivity.
Internet Service Provider (ISP) Martins Akingba, has disclosed that the poor internet experienced in Nigeria may persist for the next three weeks.
Akingba who is also the chief operating officer (COO) eStream Networks, told
Akingba said the incident could be as a result of human activities such as fishing and anchoring in shallow waters near shore, natural hazards such as earthquakes, landslides, and then equipment failure. “It could also be intentional, as we cannot rule that out,” he added.

Meanwhile, Glo 1, owned by Nigeria’s leading digital services company, Globacom, was not affected by the damage and has continued to operate normally. Data users, internet service providers and financial institutions which run on Glo 1 have continued to operate normally.
On how this internet disruption has affected his business, Akingba said, “eStream quickly switched to other Network, when we realised the outage. We are lucky that we have contract with other submarine companies like Glo 1. So, we quickly switched to other network that was not affected.”
The chairman, Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria (ALTON), Engr. Gbenga Adebayo averred that some telecoms operators were affected by the internet disruption, which led to low internet speed, as experienced by consumers.

“This is due to the impact of multiple damage to the International undersea cables across East and West Africa coast line which occurred sometime on the 14th of March, 2024 outside the shore of Nigeria. This unfortunate development has impacted on Data and Internet service delivery by some of our members.
We highly regret any inconveniences caused by the damage to the submarine fibre optics cable in the international waterways,” Adebayo appealed.
He assured users of Communication services that repair process is ongoing by the responsible international service providers and services should be fully resolved soonest.

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“On behalf of our affected members, we offer our apologies for all inconveniences arising from the impact of the damage and resulting outage.
We seek for your continuous understanding,” he pleaded.
Meanwhile, the management of MainOne told LEADERSHIP that services has been restored to some of its customers.

It said, “We have restored services to some customers and are actively working on restoring services to others via capacity acquired on available cable systems. The estimated repair time is for our submarine cable fault to be fixed, to enable our services to become fully restored, and independently supply capacity to our customers.”