How undersea cable damage causes Internet outage in Nigeria, Ghana, others

Damage to at least three subsea cables off the West Coast of Africa on Thursday disrupted internet services in Nigeria, Ghana and other countries across the continent.

According to AP, the MTN Group, one of Africa’s largest network providers, said the ongoing disruptions were a result of failures in multiple major undersea cables. “Our operations are actively working to reroute traffic through alternative network paths,” the South African company said in a statement.

Telecommunications subscribers and bank users were stranded for hours as the disruption paralysed digital transations and internet communications.

According to one of the world’s leading financial news organisations, Bloomberg, the West Africa Cable System, MainOne and ACE sea cables — arteries for telecommunications data — were all affected on Thursday. National Daily gathered that network disruptions caused by cable damage have occurred in Africa in recent years.