The undersea cable cut which has led to massive disruption of the Internet across West Africa, Central Africa, among others might take at least five weeks for repairs and restoration to occur. This disruption has affected various sectors of the economy including banking, health, transport, mobile phone operations, money transfer agencies and stock exchange markets.
TheMediaGood Newspaper can report that Ghana’s National Communications Authority held a meeting with the four subsea cable landing service providers—Africa Coast to Europe (ACE), MainOne, owned by data center operator Equinix (EQIX.O), opens new tab, South Atlantic 3 (SAT-3) and the West Africa Cable System (WACS) – and mobile network operators. It said the service providers had located the approximate location of the damage and had made preparations to dispatch repair vessels.
Ghana’s NCA noted ‘The cable landing service providers have indicated an estimated time frame of a minimum of five weeks for full service restoration from the time the vessels are dispatched to the various locations’
On its part, MainOne, one of the affected undersea cables said last Friday 15th March that a preliminary analysis showed some form of seismic activity on the seabed. It suggested this might have resulted in the break to its cable.