Many banks and other financial institutions, as well as telecommunications companies and affiliated businesses, were forced to scale back operations on Friday due to service disruptions caused by Thursday’s cut of an undersea cable that provides broadband internet connectivity to Nigeria and other countries. West African subregion.
Customers of telecom companies and financial institutions were also disappointed as they were unable to complete major transactions.
Telecommunications engineers have been dispatched to locations where fiber optic lines have been cut between Senegal and Côte d’Ivoire in a bid to repair cables and restore services, The Saturday Telegraph has learned.
The National Communications Authority (NCA) disclosed in a statement on Thursday morning that the internet outage was caused by “multiple submarine cable outages affecting mobile and fixed data services across the country”, the first sign of this in Ghana. An interrupt occurs.
“Senegal and Côte d’Ivoire experienced outages affecting multiple submarine cables responsible for carrying international traffic, and Portugal also experienced some outages. This resulted in significant reductions in data services across the country.”
By the afternoon, Nigeria’s telecommunications services were affected by underwater cable outages, with banks and other internet-dependent services also affected.
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The Nigeria Communications Commission acknowledged in a statement signed by its Director of Public Affairs, Reuben Muoka, that data and voice services across the west coast of Africa were affected by the cut of underwater cables.
The NCC said: “Cable cuts caused the failure of major submarine cable equipment off the West African coast, negatively impacting data and fixed telecommunications services in several West African countries, including Nigeria, Ghana, Senegal and Côte d’Ivoire. Cutbacks occurred in some locations in Côte d’Ivoire and Senegal, What followed was a disruption in Portugal.
It added: “Cable companies on the West African Cable System and the European West Coast route from Africa to Europe have experienced outages, while SAT3 and MainOne have experienced outages.
“Similar undersea cables that provide traffic from Europe to the east coast of Africa, such as the Seacom, European India Gateway (EIG), Asia-Africa-Europe 1 (AAE1) cable, are said to have been cut at a point around the Red Sea, causing these The quality of service on the route has deteriorated.
“In Nigeria and other West African countries, six service provider networks in the affected countries experienced disruptions in internet access and speeds.”
Still, the commission said affected cable companies have begun repairs and service is gradually being restored.
“They are committed to working around the clock to ensure that services in affected countries are restored in the shortest possible time. It is important that businesses and individual consumers have information about these services,” the NCC said in a statement.
MainOne, the main internet provider for Nigerian banks, has suffered a major fiber outage, leaving customers unable to use banking apps or USSD services, forcing some Nigerian institutions to go offline.