MainOne, a leading digital infrastructure service provider in West Africa, has announced the restoration of services to some customers and is actively working towards full restoration by leveraging available capacity on other cable systems.
For over three days, parts of Africa experienced internet access difficulties following an incident that caused disruptions in subsea communications cables, significantly impacting banking and telecommunication services in Nigeria.
MainOne, along with other submarine communications cables like the West Africa Cable System (WACS), the Africa Coast to Europe (ACE), and SAT3, were affected by the incident.
Initially, MainOne projected a repair timeframe of up to two weeks for its undersea cables. However, the company clarified that this timeline was for fixing the submarine cable fault, not for restoring services.
“The repair time is to enable our services to become fully restored and independently supply capacity to customers,” MainOne stated in a recent statement.
The company has already restored services to some customers and is actively working on restoring services to others by utilizing available capacity on alternative cable systems.
Meanwhile, other telecommunication firms have also initiated repairs on the damaged underwater digital communication cables along the West African coast.
Addressing the situation, the Nigerian Communication Commission (NCC) attributed the internet disruptions to damages affecting major undersea cables near Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire. The NCC assured that repairs had commenced and companies were committed to restoring services promptly.
Swift Networks, a facilities-based telecommunications company, reported partial connectivity restoration on March 16. However, some customers may still face limitations in accessing certain websites.
Swift Networks is one of seven internet service providers (ISPs) connected to the MainOne submarine cable system in Nigeria.
