By Ola Kay
Following an unanticipated submarine cable cuts on Thursday, Multiple African internet connectivity providers experienced major outages in South Africa, Nigeria and Ghana, leading to serious service disruptions.
Seacom, a South African based internet connectivity provider appealed to its customers that it is going through a service-distruption outage through its submarine network, the West African Cable System.
Similarly, MainOne, a major internet provider for most Nigerian banks also suffered a major fibre cut in Ghana which resulted in pushing scores of major Nigerian banks offline.One one hand, the report was circulated among bank staff through internal communication sent to bank staff . Consequently, customers of major Nigerian banks cannot access their banking apps or use any USSD service.
On another hand, MTN, a South African owned Telecommunications company informed millions of its subscribers via sms message, apologising for poor internet services that may have been experienced in the process.
The Telecomm giant assured that efforts are ongoing to fix the issues associated with the reported cable cuts.
Many bank customers have also complained about their inability to use their banking apps or access the internet easily since Thursday morning. Some if the affected Nigerian banks had issued a communication to customers informing them that some online banking activities have been “experiencing difficulties.”
A report, credited to the Cable quoted Seacom as saying, “Traffic is currently being rerouted via alternate paths, with no current congestion. However, services towards Europe from Maputo and South Africa are at risk should the alternate paths fail.”
Additional reports say that same outage went beyond Nigeria, with South African internet subscribers also experiencing slow speeds and unresponsive internet.
The report further informed that other submarine cables such as AAE1, EIG “have also suffered outages across Africa.”
About The Author
