MainOne, a leading digital infrastructure service provider, announced that repairing its damaged submarine cable may take up to five weeks.
The company made this known in a statement on Friday following a fault experienced on its network on Thursday.
The company attributed the fault to an external incident, resulting in a cut along the West African coast, offshore Cote D’Ivoire, in the Atlantic Ocean.
At least four undersea fiber optic cables, which carry approximately 97% of all Internet traffic, were damaged last week in the Red Sea, telecommunications providers are reporting. The instability in Yemen threatens to prevent operators from fixing them immediately.
The outage disrupted operations in Nigerian banks, as MainOne serves as the main internet provider for some of them.
The disruption caused inconvenience to customers who were unable to access banking services.
The company hybrid cloud solutions to microfinance banks, offers services to major telecom operators, MSMEs, ISPs, government agencies, and educational institutions.
MainOne assured customers it will expedite repair process and promptly restore network connectivity.
The technology firm revealed that the repair procedure involves inspecting and testing the cable joints for defects, followed by lowering the cable back to the seabed and guiding it to an optimal position.
The statement read in part, “We have a maintenance agreement with Atlantic Cable Maintenance and Repair Agreement 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. Post repair, joints will be inspected and tested for any defects, and then the submarine cable is lowered back to the seabed and guided to a good position.
“This process might take 1-2 weeks for repairs while about 2-3 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.”
Submarine cable faults mostly occur as natural hazards such as earthquakes, landslides, and then equipment failure
In 2013, internet speeds in Egypt fell by about 60% after three divers attempted to intentionally cut an undersea cable near Alexandria.