MainOne, a prominent digital infrastructure service provider in West Africa, has disclosed that repairing its undersea submarine cables may require approximately three weeks.
This announcement comes in the wake of major cuts to undersea submarine cables on Thursday, disrupting internet traffic across significant parts of the continent.
According to MainOne’s statement, the repair process entails a meticulous series of steps, each adding to the complexity of the task at hand. The company highlighted the need for an additional two to three weeks for a vessel to transport the necessary spares of submarine cables from Europe to West Africa, compounding the already extensive repair duration.
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“First identify and assign a vessel, the vessel has to retrieve the necessary spares required for repair, and then sail to the fault location to conduct the repair work,” it said.
MainOne’s woes originated from an external incident resulting in a critical cut on its submarine cable system in the Atlantic Ocean, just offshore from Cote D’Ivoire along West Africa’s coastline. The company emphasized its reliance on the Atlantic Cable Maintenance and Repair Agreement (ACMA) to facilitate the repair process efficiently.
“We have a maintenance agreement with Atlantic Cable Maintenance and Repair Agreement (ACMA) to provide repair services for the submarine cable,” stated MainOne in its official statement. “The affected section of the submarine cable will have to be pulled from the seabed onto the ship where it will be spliced by skilled technicians.”
The implications of the network outage were profound, extending far beyond MainOne’s operational sphere. A preliminary report by NetBlocks, a prominent internet monitoring organization, shed light on the extensive impact of the undersea cable cuts across Africa. Thirteen countries bore the brunt of the disruption, experiencing varying degrees of internet blackout and business standstill.
Countries like Nigeria, Lesotho, and South Africa reported relatively low internet impact, with connectivity ranging from 72 percent to 82 percent, according to NetBlocks’ preliminary findings. Businesses in these countries were mildly affected compared to those in severely impacted nations.
However, the picture was grim for other nations caught in the turmoil. Cote d’Ivoire, Liberia, Benin Republic, Ghana, and Burkina Faso were among those hit hardest by the internet disruptions. The severity of the impact varied, with some countries experiencing connectivity plummeting to as low as four percent, leaving businesses paralyzed and citizens grappling with the digital blackout.
The arduous repair process ahead means that the affected nations in West Africa face an uncertain period of internet instability, with damaging impacts on their economies, businesses, and everyday lives.
In addition to MainOne Service, another Nigerian indigenous telecommunications company, Globacom, operates the Glo-1 submarine cable, spanning 9,800km and connecting seven African countries along the West African coast. Notably, it remains the only submarine cable unaffected by the recent damage caused by cable cuts.
Experts have expressed concerns regarding the cause of these cuts and the anticipated timeline for repairs, which currently remains uncertain. This situation, they said, presents the opportunity to address the risks associated with relying solely on one source of digital infrastructure for broadband connectivity.
The Minister of Communications, Innovation, and Digital Economy, Mr. Bosun Tijani, has disclosed Nigeria’s aim to bolster its broadband infrastructure through $2 billion investments. Against the backdrop of the undersea cable cuts, there is a clear need to utilize Nigeria’s Communication Satellite technology as a backup to fortify the nation’s digital infrastructure.