MainOne, a provider of Digital Infrastructure Services, has disclosed that the repair of the recently damaged subsea cables, which caused disruptions in Internet connectivity in Nigeria and several other West African nations, will require up to eight weeks.
On March 14, there was an internet outage affecting multiple network services, leading to disruptions in internet access across key sectors of the country.
The impacted undersea cables included the West Africa Cable System (WACS), Africa Coast to Europe (ACE), MainOne, and SAT3. This disruption had a detrimental effect on data and fixed telecom services in various West African countries, including Nigeria, Ghana, Senegal, and Cote d’Ivoire, and even extending to eastern and southern Africa.
Initially, on March 15, the company indicated that repairing its undersea submarine cables might take one to two weeks. However, in a statement released on Monday, MainOne announced that it has restored network access in the region. Nonetheless, due to the extent of the cable damage, the repair process is expected to take longer than originally anticipated.
It reads: “MainOne has continued to demonstrate resilience and agility in the face of recent challenges, focused on delivering value to customers and enabling West Africa’s digital ecosystem.
“MainOne has restored services and enabled regional interconnection over the last one week to ensure stability in the digital ecosystem across the region.
“In addition, we are actively working with our maintenance partners, vessel owners and permitting authorities to expedite the repair of our submarine cable.
“We are very optimistic that our cable will be repaired as planned and services fully restored, so that we can continue to operate with continued integrity of the submarine cable.
“The repair vessel has already been loaded with required spares for the cable repair. Timelines for cable repairs are estimated at 6 to 8 weeks, given the number of cables damaged in this incident.”