Subsea cable repairs might take eight weeks, says MainOne

MainOne, a West African digital infrastructure service provider, says the timeframe to repair the cables is estimated at six to eight weeks.

On March 15, the company had said repairing its undersea submarine cables might take one to two weeks.

MainOne also said there was stability in its network across the region, adding that it worked with regional partners last week and over the weekend to reroute traffic with restoration capacity.

However, in a statement on Monday, MainOne said due to the number of cables damaged, the repair timeframe will take longer than initially reported.

“MainOne has continued to demonstrate resilience and agility in the face of recent challenges, focused on delivering value to customers and enabling West Africa’s digital ecosystem,” the company said. 

“MainOne has restored services and enabled regional interconnection over the last one week to ensure stability in the digital ecosystem across the region.

“In addition, we are actively working with our maintenance partners, vessel owners and permitting authorities to expedite the repair of our submarine cable. 

“We are very optimistic that our cable will be repaired as planned and services fully restored, so that we can continue to operate with continued integrity of the submarine cable.

“The repair vessel has already been loaded with required spares for the cable repair. Timelines for cable repairs are estimated at 6 to 8 weeks, given the number of cables damaged in this incident.”

MainOne added that it will continue to provide regular updates on the progress of the repair efforts.