Kelvin Bowoto
Internet access in some parts of Africa has deteriorated due to underwater cable failures. On Thursday, March 14, 2024, Ghana’s Chamber of Telecommunications announced that there are failures on various submarine cables that enter the country.
It stated that these failures are affecting mobile network operators and Internet service providers to varying degrees, resulting in poor connection quality for subscribers.
Banks in Nigeria have been plagued by Internet interruptions, with some clients unable to conduct transactions using bank apps or USSD.
According to Atlas News, Ivory Coast’s two main Internet providers, Orange CI and MTN, have also experienced Internet outages.
According to NetBlocks, a website that provides data on Internet access throughout the world, outages in West Africa are the worst in Africa.
“Live network data show today’s telecom disruption in Africa has intensified; the incident has a high impact on West Africa, with significant reductions in connectivity evident across the continent; operators report multiple subsea cable failures.”
Dimension Data, a South African IT company, also alerted its customers that there was a cable failure on the West Africa Cable System, forcing the company to route traffic through Internet provider Seacom, according to ITWeb.[/vc_column_text]
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According to reports from February, Houthi rebels were responsible for the devastation, which affected four Internet cables: AAE-1, Seacom, Europe India Gateway (EIG), and TGN systems.
Although Seacom could not confirm that the rebels were responsible for the cable destruction, it stated, “the location of the cable break is significant due to its geopolitical sensitivity and ongoing tensions, making it a challenging environment for maintenance and repair operations.”
Interestingly, this is not the first time that damage to undersea cables has resulted in internet disruptions; in 2020, MTN cited undersea cables for internet disruptions in West Africa.
In 2018, ten West African countries went fully offline for 48 hours owing to damage to the African Coast to Europe (ACE) underwater cable.
In 2017, MainOne’s 14,000-kilometer undersea cable installation disrupted the Internet across West Africa as well. However, this time, Internet problems appear to have spread beyond Africa to certain European countries, implying a more serious situation.
Techrectory with Agency Report.
