Telecommunication companies, banks, and other financial institutions have rerouted their traffic to alternative service providers following cuts to the undersea cable supplying broadband Internet connectivity to Nigeria and countries in the West African sub-region.
The damage to critical submarine cables, on Thursday, led to significant network outages, preventing banks and telcos from providing seamless communication and financial services to their customers.
The Chairman of the Association of Licensed Telecom Operators of Nigeria, Gbenga Abebayo, told Sunday PUNCH that major carriers had turned to alternative providers, rerouting traffic in an attempt to restore services.
Abebayo said while some providers had confirmed the restoration of services, others were still in the process of migration, leading to delays and congestion.
However, the chairman assured that in the next two to three days, services would be fully restored.
“A number of the landing cable operators in Nigeria have provided alternatives to the major carriers. We are aware that there is traffic routing to other providers. We are aware that services are being gradually restored. In the next couple of days, things will return to normalcy,” he said.
The ALTON chairman further explained that the process involved establishing new connections, propagation, and ensuring compatibility and reliability of the rerouted traffic.
“While some have confirmed full-service restoration, others are still in the process of migration, which naturally takes time. The traffic “highway” was temporarily closed, but it’s now reopened, and we’re witnessing a surge of users trying to resume their activities on the network,” Adebayo explained.
On Thursday, the telecom industry regulator, the Nigerian Communications Commission, in a statement by the Director, Public Affairs, Reuben Muoka, confirmed that the undersea cable cuts disrupted data and voice services along the West African coast.
The affected operators, including West African Cable System and African Coast to Europe, along with SAT3 and MainOne, experienced downtime.
The regulator attributed the disruptions to incidents in Cote d’Ivoire and Senegal, resulting in subsequent disruptions in Portugal.
According to the NCC, similar challenges along other undersea cable routes, such as Seacom, Europe India Gateway, and Asia-Africa-Europe 1, also experienced cuts.
Sunday PUNCH gathered that telecom engineers had been dispatched to the points of the cuts between Senegal and Cote d’Ivoire to quickly fix the fibre optic cables coming from Europe and restore services.
Of all the big industry operators, MTN Nigeria was the most affected by the network disruption, as it has the highest number of subscribers to its voice and data services.
A high-ranking source told Sunday PUNCH that the operator was committed to resolving the issue and restoring normalcy to services as soon as possible, but could not provide a duration for service restoration.
The source said that the fact that subscribers were still able to use the Internet, although not fully, meant there was a redundancy in place, which simply meant the operator rerouted elsewhere.
At present, MTN can confirm a cable cut at a depth of approximately 3,000 meters, likely caused by a geological event such as a landslide, the source disclosed.
The source explained that while a cable cut disrupted the transfer of calls and data, the fact that some users remained connected underscored the effectiveness of those redundancy measures.
“Partnerships among cable companies ensure redundancy within the network, allowing for swift activation of alternative routes when such incidents occur.
“This incident has also impacted three other subsea cable systems in the area. Repair efforts are underway, with a cable ship mobilised for joint repair operations.
“MTN is actively addressing the situation to minimise any impact on our customers. In events like this, redundancy measures play a crucial role,” the source said.
The telco also confirmed, through a statement obtained by Sunday PUNCH on Saturday, that it was working with partners to repair and restore the network.
“MTN would like to assure you that we are working with our partners to repair without delay disruptions to network services resulting from damaged underwater digital communication cables along the West Coast of Africa.
“We are also working to quickly mitigate the impact of the damage by rerouting traffic. We have already made progress in restoring service in some affected areas and remain committed to achieving full recovery as expeditiously as possible.
“Recognising the critical importance of network reliability, we work to continuously strengthen our infrastructure to mitigate future disruptions. We sincerely appreciate your understanding and patience during this period,” the operator said.
MainOne, a key Internet provider for Nigerian banks, also suffered a significant fibre cut, leading to outages that left some Nigerian banks offline, preventing customers from accessing banking apps or using USSD services.
The service provider revealed on Friday that the repair process for its damaged submarine cable could take up to five weeks.
The company does not only support commercial and microfinance institutions with connectivity and hybrid cloud solutions, it also provides services to major telecom operators, ISPs, government agencies, small to large enterprises, and educational institutions.
Preliminary investigations conducted by the company attributed the fault to an external incident, resulting in a cut along the West African coast, offshore Cote d’Ivoire, in the Atlantic Ocean.
MainOne has reassured its customers of its dedicated efforts to expedite the repair process and promptly restore network connectivity.
Part of its statement read, “We have a maintenance agreement with Atlantic Cable Maintenance and Repair to provide repair services for the submarine cable. First, identify and assign a vessel. the vessel has to retrieve the necessary spares required for repair; and then sail to the fault location to conduct the repair work.
“This process might take one-two weeks for repairs, while about two to three weeks of transit time may be required for the vessel to pick up the spares and travel from Europe to West Africa once the vessel is mobilised,” MainOne noted in a statement.
Banks
Sources at the banks confirmed that traffic diversion was ongoing in a move to ensure that financial services remained operational, amidst disruptions caused by undersea cable damage.
The President of the Association of Senior Staff of Banks, Insurance, and Financial Institutions, Olusoji Oluwole told Sunday PUNCH that banks had diverted their services to providers that were not completely impacted by MainOne.
He said the institutions were currently working to forestall downtime next week.
Although the ASSBIFI president admitted that customers might experience Internet downtime due to heavy traffic, he assured that banks will ensure that basic services are maintained for the benefit of customers.
“Of course, we know what has happened to MainOne being the major backbone of our Internet services in Nigeria and across the region.
“However, I am aware that some services were not fully dependent on MainOne all through the week, and right now, as we are talking, a lot of institutions are working towards diverting their services to providers that are not totally impacted by MainOne.
“It is not unlikely that we will not get optimal services, but they should be better, unlike the failure we experienced in the last couple of days. We have to consider the fact that there will be a lot of pressure on the service providers that are not totally dependent on MainOne.
Oluwole further stated that the issue was a serious indicator for officials in charge of communications in the government and private sectors to step up their game on not being totally dependent on one source for Internet services.
Saturday PUNCH had reported on Friday that spokespersons for different banks said the disruption caused to telecom services by the undersea cable cuts had a significant impact on their operations.
The spokesman for a Pan-African bank, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said, “All the systems are down, but there seemed to be some improvements today (Friday), compared to yesterday (Thursday).
“We hear that the telecom operators have resorted to their backup systems to back up critical services. Our systems are up but slow. The financial risk is so huge; money is being lost, and we don’t even know how much it will be until services are fully restored.”
The spokesman added that this development required that stakeholders and governments on the African continent take a critical look at the tech infrastructure in Africa and chart a new way forward.
In another interview with the President, Association of Corporate and Marketing Communications Professionals in Nigerian Banks, Rasheed Bolarinwa, he maintained that customers had nothing to worry about, as efforts were underway to restore everything to normalcy.
Bolarinwa said, “Customers have nothing to worry about as bank services have been substantially restored since Friday. At 16.28 hours before I responded to you, I carried out a transaction on the platform without any hitch.
Glo not affected
The management of Globacom, a leading telecommunications company in Nigeria, has said its Glo 1 network, was unaffected by the cut.
Glo 1, according to a statement from the company’s media team, was untouched by the damage and was still running as usual.
“Glo 1, powered financial institutions, Internet service providers, and data consumers have all carried on with business as usual.
“Industry observers are of the view that Glo 1 International Submarine Cable’s resilient construction and durability are the reasons the damage did not compromise the cable,” the statement added.
Businesses stranded
Sunday PUNCH reports that Small businesses in Nigeria that depended on online network provision to run were feeling the brunt of the undersea cable cut that had slowed down network and Internet access across the country.
Several entrepreneurs, ranging from online business vendors, restaurateurs, clothiers, and other service providers, who spoke to our correspondent, lamented that the slow network had affected their businesses badly.
Most of them said they had to pause operations for a while because transactions that were conducted via the Internet and other network channels no longer went through as and when they should.
A cloth maker and Chief Executive Officer, The Tailor’s Workshop, Ruth Alimi, said her customers could not make mobile money transfers or even view her catalogue using her Dropbox links.
“To complete a transaction that should take nothing less than 15 minutes now takes the entire day. I had to walk to a bank’s Automated Teller Machine to carry out a transaction because the mobile app, Internet banking, and USSD options were not functioning.
“I reached out to the customer care service lines and they were also having the same issues processing their transactions. It is just a terrible situation,” she said.
An e-hailing driver, Mr Wisdom Okoroafor, said he had been having issues connecting to the e-hailing apps, where he could find passengers.
