NetBlocks, an internet watchdog, reported that eight West African countries, including Ghana, Nigeria, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Liberia, and Benin Republic, experienced internet connectivity issues due to damage to undersea cables on Thursday.
NetBlocks made this statement on its X handle on Thursday.
NetBlocks is an organization that monitors cybersecurity and the governance of the internet, operating since 2017 with the aim of monitoring internet freedom.
NetBlocks, in the post, mentioned that the telecoms disruption in #Africa has intensified with significant reductions in connectivity evident across the continent, and operators reporting multiple subsea cable failures.
Earlier, it posted about a major disruption to internet connectivity in West and Central #Africa, affecting networks supplying telecoms via subsea cables to multiple countries and operators.
Bloomberg reported that the West Africa Cable System, MainOne, and ACE sea cables, which are important for telecommunications data, were all affected on Thursday.
MTN Nigeria confirmed the internet disruption, attributing the network outage to the damage of international undersea cables across East & West Africa.
MTN Nigeria indicated that the repair process is ongoing to resolve the situation as soon as possible.
The National Communications Authority in Ghana revealed that multiple undersea cable disruptions led to an internet outage in the country.
The National Communications Authority stated that the disruptions affecting multiple undersea cables responsible for carrying international traffic had led to a significant degradation of data services across the country.
The authority also noted that the Mobile Network Operators have redundancies on other cables and are working to restore full services, and have informed affected customers of the disruptions via various channels.
Ghanaians have taken to the social media platform X to express their displeasure with the situation that started in the morning.
A user named George Koranteng on X asked whether the MTN internet was down in his area or the whole of Ghana.
Another user, Koho Khan, expressed frustration with the lack of working internet, stating that nothing was functioning.
MTN Ghana apologized for the disruption in a message to their customers and mentioned that their technical teams are working to resolve the issue and will keep customers updated.
The Ghana Chamber of Telecommunications has also released a statement signed by Louise Bobbie Osei, informing users about the outage. They mentioned that it affected internet, data, and Voice over IP services of the Chamber, the Mobile Network Operators, and the Data Service Providers to different extents. This has led to customers and subscribers currently facing service difficulties.
