Internet outages spike in West Africa amid reports of subsea cable disruptions

At least a dozen African nations were ‘severely’ impacted after several operators on Thursday (Mar 14) reported failures in undersea internet cable networks.

The cause of the disruption was not immediately clear but experts said it pointed to ‘something larger’.

Today’s disruption “points to something larger [and] this is amongst the most severe,” said Isik Mater, director of research at NetBlocks, a group that documents internet disruptions around the world.

Seacom, an operator of the African subsea cable network, said traffic was being redirected to the Google Equiano cable, a process that happens automatically when “a route is impacted.”

Countries affected

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.

“There seems to be a pattern in the timing of the disruptions, impacting from the north to the south of Africa,” Cloudflare Radar said.

Concerns

Africa leads in mobile internet usage compared to other continents, with scores of businesses 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.

At least four submarine internet cables ‘cut’ in Red Sea, Houthis deny role

Mater 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.

Red Sea tensions

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.

Red Sea underwater cables under threat from Houthis?

Israeli media blamed the damage on Houthi rebels in Yemen, a claim that the militant group vehemently denied.

Some theories suggested that cables could have been threatened by the recent sinking of the British cargo ship Rubymar, which was attacked by Houthis on February 18.