Undersea Cable Cuts: Services To Be Restored Soon, NCC Assures

The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has assured that Internet services will be restored soon, as operators of the damaged undersea cables have commenced repairs.

Recall that in the early hours of Thursday, there were reports of a combination of cable cuts, resulting in equipment faults on the major undersea cables along the West African Coast, which negatively impacted data and fixed telecom services in several countries of West Africa, including Nigeria, Ghana, Senegal, Cote de Ivoire, among others.

The cuts occurred somewhere in Cote de’Ivoire and Senegal, with an attendant disruption in Portugal.

Cable companies – West African Cable System (WACS) and African Coast to Europe (ACE) in the West Coast route from Europe have experienced faults while SAT3 and MainOne have downtime.

Similar undersea cables providing traffic from Europe to the East Coast of Africa, like Seacom, Europe India Gateway (EIG), Asia-Africa-Europe 1 (AAE1), are said to have been cut at some point around the Red Sea, resulting in degradation of services across on the routes.

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Huge volumes of data are transported across continents by underwater cables, which are an essential component of internet connectivity infrastructure. They could, however, be harmed by things like unintentional cuts, natural disasters, or technological failures. The functioning of governments, corporations, and individual consumers can all be severely impacted by disruptions to these connections.

In Nigeria and other West African countries, Internet access and speed have experienced disruptions in the networks of service providers in the affected countries, of which banks and telecoms companies were mostly affected.

For instance, customers of significant Nigerian banks are consequently unable to use any USSD services or access their banking apps.

“We have notified our customers, that certain online banking operations have been having issues,” a source working with Sterling Bank in Nigeria told LEADERSHIP.

However, the NCC, in a press statement made available to LEADERSHIP, said operators of the cables have commenced repairs already, and services were gradually being restored.

They have promised to work round the clock to ensure that services are restored to the affected countries within the shortest possible time, the Commission assured.

In the same vein, MTN said efforts were being made to resolve the disruption.

“Recognising the critical importance of consistent internet and communication services, we are fully committed to swiftly addressing these disruptions.

“To mitigate the impact on our customers in the affected countries, our operations are actively working to reroute traffic through alternative network paths and engaging with our consortium partners to expedite the repair process for the damaged cables.

“Leveraging our robust and resilient network infrastructure, we aim to minimise service interruptions and maintain connectivity. We thank you for your patience and understanding as we work diligently to resolve this situation.”