The Nigerian government has officially confirmed that the impact of damaged undersea cables around the Red Sea have disrupted telecoms services in the country.
Nigeria has been hit as cable cuts affecting major undersea cable companies, which disrupted data and voice services along the African West Coast, continues to spread across part of the continent, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) said in a statement reviewed by Technology Times.
“A combination of cable cuts,” Reuben Muoka, NCC Public Affairs Director said in the statement, resulting in equipment faults on the major undersea cables along the West African Coast have negatively impacted on data and fixed telecom services in several countries of West Africa, including Nigeria, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Senegal, Cote d’Ivoire. The cuts occurred somewhere in Cote d’Ivoire and Senegal, with an attendant disruption in Portugal.”
Nigeria’s NCC: No words yet on cause of undersea cable cuts
The Nigerian telecoms regulator’s official confirmation comes just as undersea cable companies, telecoms service providers and West African nations, including Ghana, have confirmed that they have been affected by the damaged undersea cables.
“Cable companies – WACs and ACE in the West Coast route from Europe have experienced faults while SAT3 and MainOne have downtime. Similar undersea cables providing traffic from Europe to the East Coast of Africa, like Seacom, EIG, AAE1, are said to have been cut at some point around the Red Sea, resulting in degradation of services across on these routes,” according to the NCC spokesman.
Internet access and speed have experienced disruptions in the networks of service providers in the affected countries, including Nigeria and other West African nations, Muoka said, who did not disclose the cause of the cable cuts.
According to NCC, “Operators of these cables have commenced repairs already, and services are gradually being restored. They have promised to work round the clock to ensure that services are restored to the affected countries within the shortest possible time. It is important to bring this information to the knowledge of corporate and individual consumers on these services.”
