Internet Outage: Undersea Cable Cuts Disrupt Data, Voice Services along African West Coast

A combination of cable cuts, resulting in equipment faults on the major undersea cables along the West African Coast, have negatively impacted data and fixed telecom services in several countries of West Africa, including Nigeria, Ghana, Ivory Coast, 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 these routes.

In Nigeria and other West African countries, Internet access and speed have experienced disruptions in the networks of service providers in the affected countries.

A statement from the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) Thursday night says “operators of these cables have commenced repairs already, and services are 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.

“It is important to bring this information to the knowledge of corporate and individual consumers on these services.”