Normal internet services may take 5 weeks to be restored in Nigeria, Ghana and others after Red Sea cable attack
The restoration of normal internet services after the Red Sea cable attack which hit Nigeria, Ghana, and some other African countries might take 5 weeks.
On March 14, 2024, subsea cable providers were affected by major cuts to undersea submarine cables, disrupting internet traffic in major parts of Africa.
In Nigeria, banking and telecommunications services were significantly hampered.
Some of the affected submarine communications cables included the West Africa Cable System (WACS), the Africa Coast to Europe (ACE), MainOne, and SAT3.
According to available records, Swift Networks is among seven internet service providers (ISPs) that have connected to the MainOne submarine cable system in Nigeria.
In an update on Saturday, one of the undersea cable companies affected by the service disruptions, MainOne, said that the situation might persist for two to three weeks for the problem to be fixed.
It explained that investigations revealed that the fault came from an external incident that resulted in a cut on the submarine cable system in the ocean.
MainOne said the rectification of the fault, retrieving necessary spares required for repair, “sailing to the fault location for the repair work might take one to two weeks, while about two to three weeks of transit time may be required for the vessel to pick up the spares and travel from Europe to West Africa once the vessel is mobilised”.
Meanwhile, Glo 1, owned by Nigeria’s leading digital services company, Globacom, was not affected by the damage and has continued to operate normally. Data users, internet service providers and financial institutions which run on Glo 1 have continued to operate normally.
Industry analysts believe the ‘sturdy’ nature and resilience of Glo 1 International Submarine Cable is the reason the damage did not affect the cable.
