Prolonged internet disruptions across Africa: What is the impact?

Several countries in West, Central and some parts of South Africa have been hit by prolonged internet outages for than 24 hours.

Nations like Senegal, Cote D’Ivoire, Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria, and Portugal have been the hardest hit. The outages, according to a communique issued by respective telcos indicate the problem has been caused by disruptions in undersea fibre optic cables.

The internet blackout did not only affect data services. It also spread through to key banks and other digital services leaving many users in limbo and transactions inaccessible for hours.

For instance, telco giant MTN Ghana said its technicians were working with its international partners to resolve the issues, a circular issued to subscribers on March 14, 2024 said.

“MTN apologies for challenges you may be experiencing in accessing data services and reaching our call center. This is due to a disruption on our international undersea cables. Our technical teams are working with our international partners to resolve the issue. We sincerely apologise for any inconvenience and will keep you updated,” a communique sent to customers read.

As of Friday March 15, 2024, data services were partially back for some mobile phone users. Currently some major Africa submarine cables are still experiencing downtime.

Yemen’s Houthis allegedly the cause

Spanning across the East Coast of Africa to Europe, Seacom/TGN, AAE1 and EIG were all experiencing prolonged cuts.  On the West Coast route to Europe, WACS, ACE were also experiencing some faults in their networks.

The destruction, which has impacted four Internet cables—the AAE-1, Seacom, Europe India Gateway (EIG), and TGN systems—was claimed to have been caused by Houthi rebels in February.

Seacom stated that the location of the cable break is notable because of its geopolitical sensitivity and ongoing tensions, making it a tough environment for maintenance and repair operations, even though it was unable to determine that the rebels were responsible for the cable destruction.

Most affected areas

The hardest hit, according to Netblocks, a service that provides internet access across the globe, is countries in West Africa.

“Live network data indicates that the disruption to telecoms in Africa has worsened today; operators report multiple subsea cable failures; the incident has a high impact on West Africa with noticeable reductions in connectivity across the continent.”

Banks in Nigeria have also been negatively impacted by Internet outages, as some clients are unable to complete transactions through bank apps and USSD.

Internet problems have also been reported by Orange CI and MTN, the two biggest Internet providers in Ivory Coast, according to Atlas News.

Additionally, according to ITWeb, South African IT company Dimension Data notified its clients that the West Africa Cable System had a cable failure, forcing the company to route traffic through Internet service provider Seacom.

Impact on workflow

Telecos were not the only institutions affected. Banks also faced some challenges with regards to service delivery, particularly online banking and services delivered through digital channels.

Qonversations reached out to an employee at one of the major banks in Ghana to ascertain the situation. According to the worker who wanted to remain anonymous, she said work was pretty slow. She added that foreign transaction was the most affected.

In her words, “Deposits and withdrawals were done intermittently. Customers had to wait long hours to before being able to have their transactions go through. Those who couldn’t stand the delay left. Generally, we didn’t do much as compared to days where the connection is stable. Initially we blamed it on the department until we reached out to the telecommunications who explained the situation to us.”

The National Communications Authority in Ghana has since issued a statement stating that Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) have “redundancies on other fibre optic cables and are working around the clock to restore full services.”

The Authority said it was keenly monitoring the situation and will update the public on further developments.

The widespread internet outages in mobile and broadband services across some parts of Africa is one of the largest in years. For now, all hands are on deck to restore the disruptions in service.