MainOne, a leading digital infrastructure company, has announced that the recent subsea cable breaks that disrupted Internet service in Nigeria and several other West African countries will require six to eight weeks to fully repair and restore the network. This information was released by MainOne in response to the widespread outage experienced in 12 African countries, including Nigeria, on Thursday, March 14, 2024.
The affected undersea cables include the West Africa Cable System (WACS), the Africa Coast to Europe (ACE), MainOne, and SAT3. The disruption had a significant impact on data and fixed telecom services in countries such as Nigeria, Ghana, Senegal, and Cote d’Ivoire, as well as extending to eastern and southern Africa. This led to internet disruptions across various sectors of the economy.
Nigeria, in particular, has incurred substantial losses due to the downtime caused by the damage to major submarine cables along both the Red Sea and the West African coast. NetBlocks, a watchdog organization monitoring cybersecurity and internet governance, estimates that Nigeria may have lost over N273 billion in the four days between March 14 to March 17.
MainOne, in its update on Monday, provided a revised schedule for the restoration efforts, citing the extent of the damage as the reason for the extended timeline. The company is working diligently to address the issue and expedite the repair process to minimize further disruptions and mitigate economic losses.
While the situation remains challenging, stakeholders are encouraged to remain patient as efforts are underway to restore full internet connectivity across the affected regions. The completion of repairs to the subsea cables will be crucial in ensuring the resilience and reliability of internet services in West Africa.
