Internet outage: Repairs have commenced on damaged subsea cables, says NCC

The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) says repairs have commenced on damaged subsea cables that negatively impacted telecommunications services in several countries, including Nigeria.

Reuben Muoka, NCC’s director of public affairs, confirmed the development in a statement on Thursday.

According to Muoka, multiple subsea cable cuts, which occurred in Cote d’Ivoire and Senegal, with an attendant disruption in Portugal, affected several West African countries.

Some of the affected countries were listed as Ghana, Senegal, and Cote d’Ivoire.

“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,” NCC said.

“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.”

Muoka said services are gradually being restored.

He said the companies have promised to work round the clock to ensure services are restored to the affected countries within the “shortest possible time”.

Earlier on Thursday, MTN Group had confirmed the impact of the damaged submarine cable on its services.

Rasheed Bolarinwa, president, Association of Corporate and Marketing Communications Professionals of Banks in Nigeria (ACAMB), said the situation also impacted connectivity across many banks.