Internet outages occurred in 13 African countries on Thursday due to damage to undersea fiber optic cables. Some countries, including Ghana and Nigeria, are still experiencing nationwide power outages.
Yesterday, multiple network providers reported internet outages, and Cloudflare’s Radar tool, which monitors internet usage patterns, detailed how the outages moved from northern West Africa to South Africa. The report said all 13 countries (Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, South Africa, Gambia and Togo) experienced nationwide outages, with most of them experiencing multiple network outages. is said to have been damaged.
Cloudflare said the internet outage in some countries, including Gambia and Guinea, was short-lived and lasted 30 minutes. Other obstacles, such as South Africa (5 hours), were longer, and some are still ongoing. As of this writing, Cloudflare reports that outages remain in six countries, including Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, and Ivory Coast.
Cloudflare said in a blog post that the outage began around 05:00 UTC on Thursday in Guinea, Liberia and Gambia, and also shared a graph of internet usage in the affected countries. To the south of those countries, disruptions began in Ivory Coast at 7:30 UTC on the same day, according to Cloudflare data. At 16:31 UTC inland, the problem reached Niger in Central Africa.
A number of sources, including local network providers such as Vodacom, MTN and the Nigerian Communications Commission, reported that damage to multiple undersea cables was the cause. “The cuts occurred elsewhere in Ivory Coast and Senegal, with associated disruptions in Portugal,” said a Thursday press release from NCC communications director Ruben Muoka.
In an Azure situation report, Microsoft said it had “determined” that “multiple cables” on the West African coast were affected, including the African Coast to Europe, MainOne, SAT3, and West Africa cable systems. A map of the damaged cables can be seen here. The cause of the cable damage is unknown.
“In addition to these cable impacts, ongoing cable cuts in the Red Sea (EIG, Seacom, AAE-1) are also impacting the overall capacity of Africa’s east coast. Total network capacity in most regions has decreased,” Microsoft said.
Earlier this month, three undersea fiber cables in the Red Sea were severed, disrupting an estimated 25 percent of internet traffic in the Middle East, Asia and Europe, and forcing plans to reroute traffic. The cause of these cable damages has not yet been determined.
Undersea cable-related internet outages are not new, as such cables account for an estimated 99 percent of intercontinental traffic, according to Telegeography calculations citing data from Euroconsult. Graffi states that minimal data means its calculations are not “accurate”). It can last for a while. For example, large parts of Tonga had to rely on satellite dishes for internet access for 12 days in 2019 due to undersea fiber cables.
