NCC: Undersea cable cut disrupts data, voice services along African West Coast
By Patience Ikpeme
The current service glitches being experienced in telecom services is traceable to the combination of cable cuts, resulting in equipment faults on the major undersea cables along the West African Coast, Nigerian Communications Commission ( NCC) explained in a statement issued by Director public Affairs Ruben Mouka.
The cut, NCC clarified negatively impacted data and fixed telecom services in several countries of West Africa, including Nigeria, Ghana, Senegal, Cote de Ivoire, among others.
Specifically, NCC said the cuts occurred somewhere in Cote de’Ivoire and Senegal, with an attendant disruption in Portugal.
“Cable companies – West African Cable System (WACS) and African Coast to Europe (ACE) in the West Coast route from Europe have experienced faults while SAT3 and MainOne have downtime”.
“Similar undersea cables providing traffic from Europe to the East Coast of Africa, like Seacom, Europe India Gateway (EIG), Asia-Africa-Europe 1 (AAE1), are said to have been cut at some point around the Red Sea, resulting in degradation of services across on these routes”, it said
Consequently , the cuts affect Nigeria, and other West African countries, Internet access , causing speed to experience disruptions in the networks of service providers in the affected countries.
“Operators of these cables have commenced repairs already, and services are gradually being restored. They have promised to work round the clock to ensure that services are restored to the affected countries within the shortest possible time”, NCC assured.
