MainOne, a company offering digital infrastructure services in West Africa, has announced that the repair of its undersea submarine cables that has affected Internet connectivity in Eastern, and Western Africa, could potentially continue for three weeks.
ASHENEWS recalls that on Thursday, there were significant disruptions to undersea submarine cables, impacting internet connectivity across key areas of the continent.
Telecommunications companies and banks in Nigeria were on Thursday hit by an internet outage as a result of damage to international undersea cables supplying them connectivity.
According to the Nigerian Communication Commission (NCC), the damage affects major undersea cables near Abidjan in Côte d’Ivoire and is causing downtime across West and South African countries.
MainOne, in a statement on Friday said there may be an extra two to three weeks of transit time needed for a vessel to collect the spare parts of submarine cables and journey from Europe to West Africa.
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“The fault occurred due to an external incident that resulted in a cut on its submarine cable system, in the Atlantic Ocean offshore Cote D’Ivoire, along the coast of West Africa.
“We have a maintenance agreement with Atlantic Cable Maintenance and Repair Agreement (ACMA) to provide repair services for the submarine cable.
“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.
“Next, in order to complete the repair, 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 MainOne statement reads.
MainOne, an Equinix Company, is a leading West African data center and connectivity solutions provider, with presence in Nigeria, Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire. It extends the benefits of digital infrastructure into the strategic African market following the acquisition of MainOne and its MDXi subsidiary.
