BREAKING: Massive internet outages hit Nigeria, Ghana and others after undersea cable damage in Ivory Coast
Nigeria and some other Western and Central African countries, including Benin, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, and Niger, have been hit by widespread internet service disruption.
Telecommunications subscribers and bank users were stranded for hours as the disruption paralysed digital transations and internet communications.
According to one of the world’s leading financial news organisations, Bloomberg, the West Africa Cable System, MainOne and ACE sea cables — arteries for telecommunications data — were all affected on Thursday.
According to data from internet analysis firms including NetBlocks, Kentik and Cloudflare, the cut triggered outages and connectivity issues for mobile operators and internet service providers across the West African sub-region.
The cause of the cable faults has not yet been determined as of press time but in a statement, telecommunications company, MTN Nigeria, explained that the network outage experienced by its subscribers was as a “result of damage to international undersea cables across East & West Africa”.
“The repair process is ongoing to resolve the situation as soon as possible. Please look out for further updates,” the company said.
Also, Microsoft reported network latency issues in its South Africa North and South Africa West locations.
“Starting at 10:30 UTC on 14 Mar 2024, customers using Azure Services in South Africa North and South Africa West may experience increased network latency or packet drops when accessing their resources,” the company said.
“We have determined that multiple fiber cables on the West Coast of Africa — WACS, MainOne, SAT3, ACE — have been impacted which reduced total capacity supporting our Regions in South Africa.
“In addition to these cable impacts, the on-going cable cuts in the Red Sea — EIG, Seacom, AAE-1 — are also impacting capacity on the East Coast of Africa. This combination of incidents has impacted all Africa capacity – including other Cloud providers and public Internet as well,” a,” Microsoft said in an update.
