Full internet service could take 5 weeks to restore – Ghanaian authorities

Ghana’s National Communications Authority has stated that repair and full-service restoration of the damaged subsea cable causing internet disruptions across West and Central Africa could take up to five weeks.   

The NCA of Ghana convened a meeting with four subsea cable landing service providers, including Africa Coast to Europe (ACE), MainOne (owned by Equinix), South Atlantic 3, and the West Africa Cable System, along with mobile network operators.  

During the meeting, the service providers identified the approximate location of the damage and made arrangements to send repair vessels. 

It stated, “The cable landing service providers have indicated an estimated time frame of a minimum of five weeks for full-service restoration from the time the vessels are dispatched to the various locations” 

Recall that last week, internet and telecommunication outages were reported across West and Central Africa, disrupting businesses across banks, stock exchanges, mobile money transactions etc. It was confirmed that the cause of the disruption was damage to the international undersea cable supplying connectivity to the region.  

The damage occurred somewhere around Senegal and Ivory Coast with similar damage around Portugal.  

Mainone reported that the damage was probably caused by some seismic activity in the seafloor leading to the break in cables although it was a preliminary report.  

The Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC) stated that repair works have already begun and operators promised to work around the clock to bring disruptions to an end.