Damaged subsea cables cause internet outages across Africa

Internet outages in 13 African countries including Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Liberia, South Africa, and more are reported to have been caused by damaged subsea cables.

Telecoms regulator, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), explained that international undersea cables running along the West African coastline were disrupted last Thursday, although the exact cause is not confirmed.

“The cuts occurred somewhere in Cote D’Ivoire and Senegal, with an attendant disruption in Portugal,” said NCC spokesman Reuben Muoka.

Cables can be severed for several reasons  ranging from fishing activities to technical failures and, although rare, can occur because of shark bites, or other natural undersea phenomena.

Muoka added that undersea earth slides – sections of the seabed which can become unstable, causing a huge amount of mud to pour down a canyon or gulley – could be another factor.

According to West African digital infrastructure firm MainOne, the preliminary analysis suggests “some form of seismic activity on the seabed resulted in a break to the cable.”

The company added that it would obtain more data when the cable is retrieved during repair.

“Given the distance from land, and the cable depth of about 3kms at the point of fault, any kind of human activity, ship anchors, fishing, drilling, etc has been immediately ruled out,” the firm added.

How were businesses affected?

Businesses across the west coast have seen major disruptions as a result with internet connectivity in the Ivory Coast down to around 4% according to internet monitoring organisation Netblocks, making it the worst-hit country.

Citizens in Liberia told the BBC that they were unable to access basic internet, and international bank transfers were reported to be affected.

Plus, Rasheed Bolarinwa, president of the Association of Corporate and Marketing Communications Professionals of Banks in Nigeria (ACAMB) told TheCable that it impacted connectivity across “virtually all” of the Deposit Money Banks in Nigeria on Thursday.

MainOne added that repair may take around two weeks to fix.

Last September, Orange Marine launched its new cable-laying vessel designed to provide efficient connectivity with the help of automation technology, and to conduct repair and maintenance with the help of robotics. Read about it here.