Damage to the SAT-3, West Africa Cable System (WACS), the Africa Coast to Europe (ACE), MainOne, and other undersea cables along the West Coast of Africa which started on Thursday, 14 March 2024, affecting telecommunications customers and banking clients may run into weeks as the repair works after preliminary investigation.
According to the Nigerian Communication Commission (NCC), the damage affects major undersea cables near Abidjan in Côte d’Ivoire and is causing downtime across West and South African countries.
MainOne, a Digital Infrastructure Service Provider on Friday declared a force majeure, and explained steps taken to restore internet connection to service providers.
Mainone said in a statement on its website that it became necessary to declare a force majeure subsequent to testing of its cable system.
It said that data from the preliminary assessment of the cable system indicated some underwater activity was the likely cause of disruptions to the system.
It said that commercial contracts typically included such a force majeure clause which enabled service providers to suspend contractual obligations for the duration of such disruptions.
Mainone said that nonetheless, it was working to restore services to as many of its customers as possible and to complete the repairs to the cable system in record time.
“We believe it is important to inform our customers of the fault details given the magnitude of the situation to set expectations and make contingency arrangements while the repairs are ongoing.
Mainone said that post repair, joints would be inspected and tested for any defects and then the submarine cable lowered back to the seabed and guided to a good position.
According to the statement, the repair process may take one week to two weeks, and about two weeks to three weeks transit time required for the vessel to pick up the spares and travel from Europe to West Africa, once the vessel is mobilised.
The statement explained that most submarine cable faults occurred as a result of human activities such as fishing, or anchoring in shallow waters near the shore, or natural hazards such as earthquakes, landslides, and then equipment failure.
Mainone said that given the distance from land, and the cable depth of about three kms at the point of fault, any kind of human activity – ship anchors, fishing, drilling among others had been ruled out.
It said that preliminary analysis suggested that some form of seismic activity on the seabed resulted in a break to the cable but more data would be obtained, after the cable’s retrieval during the repair exercise.
The service provider noted that the cable cut was not likely to be intentional given the location and depth of the cable, adding that as indicated earlier it had strong indications on probable cause.
MainOne said that it was working with Atlantic Cable Maintenance and Repair Agreement (ACMA) to deploy the vessel and was unable to provide more information at this time.
