Submarine Cable Cut: MTN Reports That Operations Successfully Restored

According to MTN Group, its subsidiary Bayobab has successfully resumed business, regaining over 3 terabits per second (Tbps) of bandwidth throughout its network.

Submarine cable outages on March 14 caused internet traffic in many regions of Africa to be disrupted and impacted subsea cable service providers.

The West Africa Cable System (WACS), the Africa Coast to Europe (ACE), MainOne, and SAT3 are among the main underwater cables in Côte d'Ivoire that were impacted by the damage.

Telecommunications and banking services were severely disrupted in Nigeria.

MTN had verified that many large underwater cable breakage were the cause of the poor internet connectivity that customers were experiencing.

In a letter to subscribers on March 18, the network provider stated that recovery operations were ongoing and that its network had made some progress.

The telecom behemoth stated in a statement on Tuesday that its subsidiary Baobab had resumed operations and provided additional updates.

MTN said: “Although the recent subsea cable disruptions on 14 March 2024 presented challenges, we have demonstrated our capabilities to maintain a resilient network and efficiently reroute traffic.

“Throughout this challenging period, we prioritised the restoration of services by swiftly activating new cables to increase inter-connectivity and establish alternative routes, thereby bolstering our network resilience.

“This approach solidifies our commitment to prioritising network reliability, and our dedication to connecting Africa and our customers as quickly as possible marking the final stretch toward connecting all our valued customers.

“This approach solidifies our commitment to prioritising network reliability, and our dedication to connecting Africa and our customers as quickly as possible marking the final stretch toward connecting all our valued customers.

“Bayobab's ecosystem facilitates secure and scalable global traffic within Africa and the rest of the world serving 19 MTN markets, third- party mobile network operators, technology corporations and other telecoms service providers.”

Also, the NCC of Nigeria reported that 90 percent of telephony and internet services had been restored.