Numerous countries in western and central Africa are currently experiencing a lack of internet service due to reported outages in several submarine cables.
The cause of the cable outage on Thursday remains unknown.
Seacom, an African submarine cable operator, has confirmed the downtime on their West African cable system, leading to rerouting of affected customers who used their cables, which are part of the Google Equiano cable.
According to NetBlocks, disruptions due to cable damage have been a recurring issue in Africa, but the current situation is considered one of the most severe instances.
Data transmissions have shown significant disruptions at the international shipping points of the submarine network, impacting at least a dozen countries, with a major threat to critical services in countries like Ivory Coast.
Africa, known for a high proportion of internet traffic on mobile devices, relies heavily on internet connectivity for various business operations.
Several countries, including Liberia, Benin, Ghana, and Burkina Faso, were heavily affected by the outage, as reported by NetBlocks.
Cloudflare also highlighted ongoing internet disruptions in countries like Gambia, Guinea, Namibia, Lesotho, and others, pointing out a disruptive pattern from north to south in Africa.
South African carrier Vodacom attributed connectivity issues to an undersea cable failure affecting network providers in South Africa.
Mehta emphasized that the impact of such cable failures could escalate as networks try to prevent damage, resulting in reduced capacity for other countries.
“While the initial disruption may be physical, further technical issues could arise,” she added.
Source: www.theguardian.com
