- Many African countries experienced internet outages on Thursday, March 14, due to several undersea telecommunications cables experiencing failures
- MTN Group, a prominent network operator in Africa, attributed the ongoing outages to failures in several vital undersea cables
- The outage has affected international bank transfers and caused restrictions on international voice calls
On Thursday, March 14, 2024, an incident involving damage to an undersea cable caused widespread disruption to Internet services in Nigeria and other parts of Africa.
As reported by BBCthe disorder spread to South Africa, Ghana, Kenya, Cote d’Ivoire, Liberia, Cameroon and Benin.
Source: UGC
The affected submarine cables near Abidjan, Ivory Coast, led to outages for several nations across West and Southern Africa.
According The nation, Vodacom announced in a statement to X that:
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βSome customers are currently experiencing intermittent connectivity issues due to multiple undersea cable failures affecting SA’s network providers, including us. We apologize for any inconvenience.”
The outage has affected various services such as Microsoft Azure and Office 365.
According to The Nation, citing Bloomberg, undersea cables, including the West African cable systems MainOne and ACE, were affected on Thursday, blocking the flow of telecommunications data.
Consequently, some Nigerian banking networks experienced outages, leading to transaction processing issues.
MTN has addressed customer concerns about poor internet connectivity by releasing a statement clarifying the root cause.
MTN said:
βWe apologize for the challenges you may be experiencing with internet speed and accessing data services at this time.
βThis is a result of damage to international submarine cables across East and West Africa. The repair process is underway to resolve the situation as soon as possible. Please watch for further updates.β
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Internet outage in North Africa
The latest outage follows a service outage experienced by Seacom, an undersea cable TV company, on its cable network in the Red Sea.
Seacom announced last week that it is awaiting permission to begin repairs on the damaged submarine cable in the Red Sea.
This sea route is important in telecommunications, as a vital link between Europe, Africa and Asia via Egypt.
The downed cables account for about a quarter of the region’s Internet traffic, according to estimates by HGC Global Communications, a Hong Kong-based Internet provider that relies on those cables.
To mitigate the impact of the outage, traffic has been rerouted through alternative cable routes, including those along the west coast of Africa.
Source: Legit.ng