Cause Of Subsea Cable Failure In West Africa Still Unknown

Yesterday’s internet outages’ cause remains unknown.

Normalcy was affected in West and Central Africa as countries in these regions experienced an internet outage. The traffic was redirected to the Google Equiano cable, a process that happens automatically when a route is impacted, confirmed Seacom.

Operators of multiple subsea cables reported failures but are not yet clear on the cause of these cable failures. At least a dozen African nations were “severely impacted,” with speculation amongst experts pointing it to something larger. “Today’s disruption points to something larger [and] this is amongst the most severe,” said Isik Mater, Director of Research, NetBlocks, a group that documents internet disruptions worldwide.

NetBlocks reported nations like Liberia, Benin, Ghana and Burkina Faso were severely affected. Additionally, disruptions were also reported in the Gambia, Guinea, Liberia, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Benin and Niger, according to a statement by internet infrastructure company Cloudflare. Namibia and Lesotho were also affected, the Guardian reported. This outage has affected businesses in West and Central Africa. With the continent leading in mobile internet usage, scores of businesses are heavily dependent on the internet for service delivery to their customers.

Vodacom, a major telecom operator in South Africa, attributed connectivity issues to undersea cable disruptions, which directly impacted the country’s network providers. Mater further noted that the repercussions of such cable failures worsen as networks try to reroute traffic around the damage, potentially diminishing available capacity for neighbouring countries.

The disruption in Africa comes weeks after at least four subsea cables were damaged in the Red Sea in the wake of increasing tensions in Yemen. Israeli media blamed the damage on Houthi rebels in Yemen, a claim that the militant group vehemently denied.

The cause for this latest subsea cable disruption is yet to be known but speculations are still doing rounds on the internet.