Africa

Undersea cable damages trigger continent-wide internet outage

MTN Group Limited, a well-known wireless carrier in Africa, announced the start of repair efforts for the ACE and WACS cables. (Photo: File/ AFP)

By Amina Wako | Monday, March 18, 2024

Côte d’Ivoire, Liberia, Benin, Ghana, Nigeria, Cameroon, South Africa, Burkina Faso, Gambia, Guinea, and Niger are among those grappling with major connectivity issues.

A widespread internet outage rocked parts of the African continent for the second consecutive day on Friday, with multiple undersea telecommunication cables sustaining damage.

As operators and internet watch groups scramble to restore connectivity, concerns are rising over the potentially prolonged duration of the disruptions, estimated to take weeks, if not months, to fix.

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The outage, attributed to damages to critical undersea cables including the West Africa Cable System (WACS), MainOne, South Atlantic 3, and ACE sea cables, has affected at least eight countries across the continent.

Côte d’Ivoire, Liberia, Benin, Ghana, Nigeria, Cameroon, South Africa, Burkina Faso, Gambia, Guinea, and Niger are among those grappling with major connectivity issues.

MTN Group Limited, a well-known wireless carrier in Africa, announced the start of repair efforts for the ACE and WACS cables.

"Despite this, we anticipate a lengthy restoration process, with repair vessels ready to dispatch to mend the damaged cables."

According to the cybersecurity and internet connectivity tracker, Netblocks, some countries experienced significant drops in connectivity levels.

Côte d’Ivoire plummeted to around four per cent, while Liberia, Benin, and Ghana experienced lows of 17 per cent, 14 per cent, and 25 per cent, respectively.

Ghana's National Communications Authority confirmed disruptions extending to Senegal and Portugal.

“This has led to a significant degradation of data services across the country, with mobile network operators working around the clock to restore full services,” the authority said.

Various sectors are already experiencing the ramifications of the outage. Ghana's main stock exchange extended trading hours, and Nigeria's second-largest cement manufacturer postponed investor calls due to obstructed business operations in multiple nations.

Additionally, the impact intensifies as networks redirect traffic to circumvent damaged areas, potentially straining the available capacity.

This incident closely follows a similar disruption in the Red Sea, where the severing of three telecommunications cables affected approximately 25 per cent of traffic between Asia and Europe, as well as the Middle East.

These events underscore the vulnerability of critical communications infrastructure.

Undersea cables, often funded by tech giants like Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Amazon, form the backbone of global internet connectivity.

While large telecom firms maintain redundancy through multiple cable systems, natural events such as earthquakes pose ongoing threats to these networks, as witnessed in Taiwan in 2006.