Massive Africa Internet Outage Could Takes Weeks, Months to Fix

According to Bloomberg, the disruption to internet services for millions of users in Africa could take weeks or even months to fix, following damage to undersea cables off the continent’s west coast.

Eight West African countries were suffering a second day of major connectivity issues on Friday with users in South Africa also affected, after damage to four sub-sea cables. The cause of the cable cutting was still not known, though a shifting of the seabed was among the likely possibilities.

“Repairs can take weeks to months, depending on where the damage is, what needs to be repaired, and local weather conditions,” said a spokesperson at internet analytics firm Cloudflare. “The assignment of repair ships depends on a number of factors, including ownership of the impacted cables.”

The West Africa Cable System, MainOne, South Atlantic 3 and ACE sea cables — arteries for telecommunications data — were all affected on Thursday and Friday. MTN Group Ltd. – one of the largest wireless carriers in Africa – said that ACE and WACS have jointly initiated the repair process, and that they would send a vessel to fix the damaged cables.