The internet outage which hit Nigeria and some other African countries may persist for up to five weeks, according to latest reports.
One of the undersea cable companies affected by the service
disruptions, MainOne, said in an update on Saturday that the situation might
persist for two to three weeks for the problem to be fixed.
It explained that investigations revealed that the fault
came from an external incident that resulted in a cut on the submarine cable
system in the ocean.
MainOne said the rectification of the fault, retrieving
necessary spares required for repair, “sailing to the fault location for the
repair work might take one to two weeks, while about two to three weeks of
transit time may be required for the vessel to pick up the spares and travel
from Europe to West Africa once the vessel is mobilised.”
Massive internet outages have been reported in Nigeria
following damage to international undersea cables supplying the country with
connectivity.
Telecommunications companies and a number of banks which
rely on the affected cables for internet services have been affected by the
outage. According to reports, the damage affected major undersea cables near
Abidjan in Côte d’Ivoire and has led to internet downtime across West and South
African countries.
The undersea cables affected are the West Africa Cable
System (WACS), the Africa Coast to Europe (ACE), MainOne, and SAT3.
Glo 1 continues to run smoothly
However, Glo 1, owned by Nigeria’s leading digital services
company, Globacom, was not affected by the damage and has continued to operate
normally. Data users, internet service providers and financial institutions
which run on Glo 1 have continued to operate normally.
Industry analysts believe the “sturdy” nature and resilience
of Glo 1 International Submarine Cable is the reason why the damage did not
affect the cable.