Telecommunications companies and banks in Nigeria have been hit by an internet outage as a result of damage to international undersea cables supplying them with connectivity.
Nairametrics gathered that the damage affected major undersea cables near Abidjan in Côte d’Ivoire and is causing downtime across West and South African countries.
The West Africa Cable System (WACS), the Africa Coast to Europe (ACE), MainOne, and SAT3 cables are affected.
Some bank networks in Nigeria have been down and unable to process transactions as a result of the internet outage. Telecom subscribers, especially, those of MTN have also been complaining of poor data experience since Thursday morning.
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Impact on telcos, banks
Responding to its customers’ complaints over the poor internet connectivity being experienced, MTN has issued a statement explaining the cause. The company said:
- “We apologize for the challenges you may be experiencing with internet speed and accessing data services at the moment.
- “This is a result of damage to international undersea cables across East & West Africa. The repair process is ongoing to resolve the situation as soon as possible. Please look out for further updates.”
In the banking space, Sterling Bank is one of the banks hit by cable damage as the bank’s network was shut down and could not process any transactions.
A visit to one of the bank’s branches in the Ogba area of Lagos State confirmed this as all customers attempting to enter the bank’s hall were being turned back.
When asked the reason, one of the staff of the bank said:
- “Our network is down and it is bank-wide, you don’t need to go to another branch. Our app is also down for now, please try it again later in the day for your transaction.”
Networks in South Africa are down as well
According to reports from local media, the cable damage has also caused a massive internet problem in South Africa.
South African publication, My Broadband reported that WIOCC group business development head Darren Bedford confirmed that multiple undersea cables operating along Africa’s West coast are experiencing outages.
Bedford said their capacity on the Equiano cable had not been impacted. WIOCC also has capacity on the East cost EASSy cable. Due to this redundant capacity, Bedford said the outage will not impact their customers.
Vodacom, one of South Africa’s telecom operators, has also confirmed the undersea cable outages.
- “Multiple undersea cable failures between South Africa and Europe are currently impacting South Africa’s network providers, including Vodacom.”
- “This means that certain customers are currently experiencing intermittent connectivity issues. We apologize for the inconvenience this may cause and thank you for your patience while the issue is being attended to,” the company stated.