The suffering experienced by Nigerian business and individual internet users, which began on Thursday, is not likely to end anytime soon. According to the most recent reports, the outage could extend for an additional five weeks.
In a statement released on Friday night, MainOne, one of the underwater cable providers impacted by the outages, stated that it may take up to three weeks for the issue to be resolved.
It was explained that further examination had shown that the undersea cable system in the ocean had been cut as a result of an external occurrence.
According to MainOne, “sailing to the fault location for the repair work might take one to two weeks, 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 mobilized.” This is in addition to the necessary spares that must be retrieved for the repair.
Since other networks were severely damaged by widespread internet outages, internet providers in Nigeria have turned to Globacom, a telecommunications business. Glo 1, which is entirely owned by it, was unaffected by the damage and has carried on with business as usual.
Glo 1-powered financial institutions, internet service providers, and data consumers have all continued to function without a hitch. Thus, internet services were unavailable for several hours for telecom firms and certain banks, whose activities depend on the impacted connections.
Industry reports state that the damage reached significant subsea cables close to Abidjan in Côte d’Ivoire, resulting in internet outages throughout West and South African nations.
The Africa Coast to Europe (ACE), MainOne, SAT3, and West Africa Cable System (WACS) are the cables that are impacted. Industry observers commended Glo 1 International Submarine Cable for its toughness in fending off the claimed damage.