Telecommunication companies, banks, and other financial institutions have redirected their traffic to other service providers because the undersea cable that provides broadband Internet to Nigeria and other West African countries was damaged.
On Thursday, important submarine cables were damaged, causing major network problems for banks and telecom companies, and making it difficult to provide consistent communication and financial services to customers.
The head of the Association of Licensed Telecom Operators of Nigeria, Gbenga Abebayo, informed Sunday PUNCH that major carriers have started using alternative providers and redirecting their traffic to try to restore services.
Abebayo mentioned that some providers have already restored their services, but others are still in the process of switching, causing delays and congestion.
However, he reassured that services will be fully restored in the next two to three days.
“Several cable operators in Nigeria have offered alternatives to major carriers. We know that traffic is being rerouted to other providers and services are gradually being restored. Everything should be back to normal in the next few days,” he stated.
The ALTON chairman explained that the process involves creating new connections, propagation, and ensuring the reliability of the redirected traffic.
“Some have already confirmed full restoration of service, while others are still in the process of switching, which naturally takes time. The 'traffic highway' was temporarily closed, but it's now reopened, and we're seeing a surge of users trying to resume their activities on the network,” Adebayo explained.
On Thursday, the Nigerian Communications Commission confirmed that the undersea cable cuts disrupted data and voice services along the West African coast.
The affected operators, including West African Cable System and African Coast to Europe, along with SAT3 and MainOne, experienced downtime.
The disruptions were caused by incidents in Cote d’Ivoire and Senegal, resulting in further disturbances in Portugal, according to the regulator.
The NCC also mentioned similar issues along other undersea cable routes, such as Seacom, Europe India Gateway, and Asia-Africa-Europe 1.
Telecom engineers were sent to the points of the cuts between Senegal and Cote d’Ivoire to quickly fix the fibre optic cables from Europe and restore services. MTN Nigeria was the most affected by the network disruption because it has the highest number of subscribers to its voice and data services.
A reliable source told
Sunday PUNCH that MTN Nigeria is working to resolve the issue and restore normal services as soon as possible, although they couldn't provide a timeframe for the restoration. The source mentioned that subscribers were still able to use the Internet, but not completely, suggesting that the operator had rerouted the traffic elsewhere.
Currently, MTN can confirm that a cable was cut at about 3,000 meters deep, likely caused by a geological event like a landslide, as revealed by the source.
The source clarified that a cable cut disrupted call and data transfer, but some users staying connected showed the effectiveness of redundancy measures.
“Partnerships among cable companies ensure backup in the network, allowing for quick activation of alternative routes when such incidents occur.
“This incident has also affected three other subsea cable systems in the area. Repair efforts are underway, with a cable ship mobilised for joint repair operations.
“MTN is actively dealing with the situation to minimize any impact on our customers. In events like this, redundancy measures play a crucial role,” the source said.
The telco also confirmed, through a statement obtained by
Sunday PUNCH on Saturday, that it was working with partners to repair and restore the network. “MTN would like to assure you that we are working with our partners to repair promptly disruptions to network services resulting from damaged underwater digital communication cables along the West Coast of Africa.
“We are also working to quickly mitigate the impact of the damage by rerouting traffic. We have already made progress in restoring service in some affected areas and remain committed to achieving full recovery as soon as possible.
“Recognizing the critical importance of network reliability, we work to continuously strengthen our infrastructure to mitigate future disruptions. We sincerely appreciate your understanding and patience during this period,” the operator said.
MainOne, a key Internet provider for Nigerian banks, also suffered a significant fibre cut, leading to outages that left some Nigerian banks offline, preventing customers from accessing banking apps or using USSD services.
The service provider revealed on Friday that the repair process for its damaged submarine cable could take up to five weeks.
The company not only supports commercial and microfinance institutions with connectivity and hybrid cloud solutions, it also provides services to major telecom operators, ISPs, government agencies, small to large enterprises, and educational institutions.
Preliminary investigations conducted by the company attributed the fault to an external incident, resulting in a cut along the West African coast, offshore Cote d’Ivoire, in the Atlantic Ocean.
MainOne has reassured its customers of its dedicated efforts to expedite the repair process and promptly restore network connectivity.
Part of its statement read, “We have a maintenance agreement with Atlantic Cable Maintenance and Repair to provide repair services for the submarine cable. First, identify and assign a vessel. the vessel has to retrieve the necessary spares required for repair; and then sail to the fault location to conduct the repair work.
“This process might take one-two weeks for repairs, while about two to three weeks of transit time may be required for the vessel to pick up the spares and travel from Europe to West Africa once the vessel is mobilised,” MainOne noted in a statement.
Bank sources confirmed that traffic diversion was happening to make sure financial services stayed usable, because the undersea cable damage was causing disruptions.
Banks
The President of the Association of Senior Staff of Banks, Insurance, and Financial Institutions, Olusoji Oluwole told
Sunday PUNCH that banks had diverted their services to providers that were not completely impacted by MainOne. He said the institutions were currently working to prevent downtime next week.
Although the ASSBIFI president admitted that customers might experience Internet downtime due to heavy traffic, he assured that banks will ensure that basic services are maintained for the benefit of customers.
“Of course, we know what has happened to MainOne being the major backbone of our Internet services in Nigeria and across the region.
“However, I am aware that some services were not fully dependent on MainOne all through the week, and right now, as we are talking, a lot of institutions are working towards diverting their services to providers that are not totally impacted by MainOne.
“It is not unlikely that we will not get optimal services, but they should be better, unlike the failure we experienced in the last couple of days. We have to consider the fact that there will be a lot of pressure on the service providers that are not totally dependent on MainOne.
Oluwole further stated that the issue was a serious indicator for officials in charge of communications in the government and private sectors to step up their game on not being totally dependent on one source for Internet services.
Saturday PUNCH
had reported on Friday that spokespersons for different banks said the disruption caused to telecom services by the undersea cable cuts had a significant impact on their operations. The spokesman for a Pan-African bank, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said, “All the systems are down, but there seemed to be some improvements today (Friday), compared to yesterday (Thursday).
“We hear that the telecom operators have resorted to their backup systems to back up critical services. Our systems are up but slow. The financial risk is so huge; money is being lost, and we don’t even know how much it will be until services are fully restored.”
The spokesman added that this development required that stakeholders and governments on the African continent take a critical look at the tech infrastructure in Africa and chart a new way forward.
In another interview with the President, Association of Corporate and Marketing Communications Professionals in Nigerian Banks, Rasheed Bolarinwa, he maintained that customers had nothing to worry about, as efforts were underway to restore everything to normalcy.
Bolarinwa said, “Customers have nothing to worry about as bank services have been substantially restored since Friday. At 16.28 hours before I responded to you, I carried out a transaction on the platform without any hitch.
Glo not affected
The management of Globacom, a leading telecommunications company in Nigeria, has said its Glo 1 network, was unaffected by the cut.
Glo 1, as per a statement from the company’s media team, was not affected by the damage and was still operating as normal.
“Glo 1, which supported financial institutions, Internet service providers, and data consumers, have all continued with business as usual.
“Experts in the industry believe that Glo 1 International Submarine Cable’s strong construction and durability are the reasons the damage did not compromise the cable,” the statement added.
Businesses stuck
Sunday PUNCH
reports that Small businesses in Nigeria that relied on online network provision to operate were feeling the impact of the undersea cable cut that had slowed down network and Internet access across the country. Numerous entrepreneurs, including online business vendors, restaurateurs, clothiers, and other service providers, who talked to our correspondent, expressed their distress that the slow network had negatively impacted their businesses.
Most of them said they had to temporarily halt operations because transactions that were conducted via the Internet and other network channels no longer went through as quickly as they should.
A cloth maker and Chief Executive Officer, The Tailor’s Workshop, Ruth Alimi, mentioned that her customers could not make mobile money transfers or view her catalogue using her Dropbox links.
“To complete a transaction that should take nothing less than 15 minutes now takes the entire day. I had to walk to a bank’s Automated Teller Machine to carry out a transaction because the mobile app, Internet banking, and USSD options were not functioning.
“I reached out to the customer care service lines and they were also having the same issues processing their transactions. It is just a terrible situation,” she said.
An e-hailing driver, Mr Wisdom Okoroafor, said he had been experiencing difficulties connecting to the e-hailing apps to find passengers.
Telecommunication companies, banks, and other financial institutions have redirected their traffic to alternative service providers due to cuts to the undersea cable supplying broadband Internet connectivity to Nigeria and countries in the West African sub-region. The damage to critical submarine cables, on Thursday, resulted in significant network outages, preventing banks and telcos from providing seamless communication […]
