Subsea Cable Outage:
An Internet Blackout for West Africa
On Thursday, March 14, 2024, at 7:43 AM GMT, the West African region experienced an unexpected network disruption. The cause? A fault in the subsea cable system running along the Atlantic coast off the Ivory Coast in West Africa. Preliminary investigations revealed that an external event led to a cut in our subsea cable.
Repair work on the damaged cable is expected to take approximately 1–2 weeks. Additionally, the vessel performing the repair requires about 2–3 weeks for transit from Europe to West Africa. Therefore, it is likely that users will be cut off from services for a period of at least 5 weeks.
Existing Uncertainty
The exact cause of the cable break remains unclear for the time being. However, it is assumed that the event was caused by seismic activity on the seabed, although further data must be collected to confirm this assumption.
Given the cable’s depth of approximately 3 km and its location far from the shore, it seems unlikely that the cut was caused intentionally. However, investigations continue to ensure that all possible causes are ruled out.
Impact on West Africa
The disruption of international services south of Senegal has far-reaching effects on the population. A significant portion of users is affected by an outage of internet services. Intensive work is underway to provide temporary capacity for partial restoration where possible.
Several countries in West and Central Africa are particularly hard hit, including the Ivory Coast, Liberia, Benin, Ghana, and Burkina Faso. There are concerns that vital services in these regions could be compromised.
Despite the declaration of Force Majeure by the parties involved, every effort is being made to restore services as quickly as possible. These events highlight the need for redundancy plans and proactive measures to protect critical infrastructure and minimize the impact of such disruptions.
What is a subsea cable and why is it so important?
Learn more about the crucial role of subsea cables in our global communication network here: The Infrastructure of the Internet
Discover how these cables transport data across oceans and why they are essential for the stability and speed of the internet.
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