Equinix-owned company, MainOne has announced the conclusion of repairs to its submarine cable following an outage which occurred in March. The company also indicated that it has provided restoration capacity and rerouted traffic on its network to minimize the impact on its customers.
According to a statement shared with Technext, Mainone completed the necessary repairs by working closely with regional partners, maintenance providers, vessel owners, and permitting authorities. “MainOne completed the necessary repairs to its submarine cable system, thanks to the diligent efforts of all stakeholders and has resumed regular operations with the utmost integrity of its submarine cable”, it said.
Recall that four undersea telecommunications cables went offline around the same time on Thursday, 14 March 2024 — the West Africa Cable System (WACS), Africa Coast to Europe (ACE), MainOne, and SAT–3
Funke Opeke, the Managing Director of MainOne, expressed gratitude to all stakeholders for their support throughout the incident: “We are immensely grateful for the support and collaboration of our partners, the patience of our valued customers, and the unwavering commitment of our team during this outage”, she said.
MainOne’s resilience in the face of the recent outage demonstrates the company’s commitment to its customers and the region’s digital transformation. Recall that a report indicated that fixing the damaged undersea fibres and restoring full service would take at least 5 weeks.
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The Ghanaian National Communication Authority arrived at this conclusion after a meeting with four subsea cable landing service providers and telcos. The landing service providers include the Africa Coast to Europe (ACE), Equinix’s MainOne, South Atlantic 3, and the West Africa Cable System.
At the meeting, the landing service providers revealed the approximate location of the damage and noted that they had made arrangements to send repair vessels to the location.
West Africa Subsea cable cut: a few days of pain
When the four undersea telecommunications cables went offline in March, the outage it caused resulted in major Internet disruptions across the continent, including Nigeria and South Africa.
In Nigeria for instance, bank customers and telecom subscribers bore the brunt of the internet service disruption as many could not transact business on their accounts. Telecom data services have become very poor, frustrating many subscribers.
According to reports from local media, the undersea 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. Vodacom, one of South Africa’s telecom operators, has also confirmed the resulting internet outages.
However, the outages did not last long and major players quickly implemented backup plans to salvage the situation within days.
Recall that Nigeria’s telco regulator, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) announced a few days after that voice and data services affected by the cable cuts have been restored to approximately 90% of their peak utilization capacities.
According to the statement by the agency’s Director of Public Affairs, Dr Reuben Muoka, all operators impacted by the cuts had taken recovery capacity from submarine broadband fibres which were not impacted and have recovered approximately 90% of their peak utilisation capacities.
The NCC also assured users that Mobile Network Operators assured the Commission that data and voice services would operate optimally pending full repairs of the undersea cables as they have managed to activate alternative connectivities to bring the situation to normalcy.
However, it seems that the woes of internet disruptions are not yet over for the continent as there was another major subsea cable cut incident last weekend. Two submarine internet cables connecting South Africa and Kenya- Eassy and Seacom cables- experienced an unexpected outage on Sunday.
According to a Netblocks report on X, Tanzania and the French island of Mayotte experienced a high impact on internet connectivity, while Mozambique and Malawi saw a medium impact. The technology company that monitors trends, Cloudflare also reported observed internet disruptions in Tanzania, Malawi, Mozambique and Madagascar as a result of faults.
South African internet users don’t appear to have been impacted, as much of the country’s internet traffic flows through cable systems such as Equiano and Wacs along Africa’s west coast. Already, the traffic that had been flowing along the east coast had been rerouted to the west coast given the cable cuts in the Red Sea.
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