A significant disruption hit the Nigerian banking and telecommunication sectors yesterday, causing widespread internet or network outages.
The network disruption was traced back to damage to key international undersea cables, notably near Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, affecting not just Nigeria but several West and South African countries as well.
The affected undersea cables include the West Africa Cable System (WACS), the Africa Coast to Europe (ACE), MainOne, and SAT3. These cables are crucial for providing internet connectivity across the region.
The damage to these cables led to substantial network downtime, with several Nigerian banks unable to process transactions, affecting countless businesses and individual users.
Telecom giant MTN, along with other service providers, has seen a surge of complaints from subscribers facing poor data experiences since the issue arose on Thursday morning.
In response, MTN issued a statement acknowledging the challenges and explaining the cause. “We apologize for the challenges you may be experiencing with internet speed and accessing data services at the moment,” the statement read, highlighting the damage to the international undersea cables as the culprit.
MTN assured its customers that repair efforts are underway and urged patience as they work to resolve the situation promptly.
The internet outage has also hit South Africa hard, with reports of massive connectivity problems stemming from the same undersea cable damage. My Broadband, a South African publication, highlighted statements from Darren Bedford, the WIOCC group business development head, confirming outages affecting multiple undersea cables along Africa’s West coast.
Despite the widespread disruption, Bedford noted that their capacity on the Equiano cable was not impacted, and thanks to redundant capacity on the East coast’s EASSy cable, their customers should not experience significant impacts.
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Vodacom, a leading telecom operator in South Africa, also confirmed the undersea cable failures, noting that they are currently affecting the country’s network providers.
“This means that certain customers are currently experiencing intermittent connectivity issues,” a statement from Vodacom explained. The company has apologized for the inconvenience and is asking for customer patience as they address the issue.
This widespread internet outage underscores the vulnerability of global internet infrastructure to physical damages and the interconnected nature of modern telecommunications. Efforts are ongoing to repair the damaged cables and restore full connectivity to the affected regions as swiftly as possible.
