Repairs to damaged subsea cables that are causing internet outages across West and Central Africa are expected to take at least five weeks before completion and full service restoration, Ghana’s communications regulator said on Saturday.

The break in the cables has led to widespread disruption of internet and telecommunications-linked businesses, including banks, mobile phone operations, money transfer agencies and stock exchange markets.

Ghana’s National Communications Authority said it held a meeting with the four subsea cable landing service providers — Africa Coast to Europe (Ace), MainOne, owned by data centre operator Equinix, South Atlantic 3 (Sat-3) and the West Africa Cable System (Wacs) — and mobile network operators.

It said the service providers had located the approximate location of the damage and had made preparations to dispatch repair vessels.

“The cable landing service providers have indicated an estimated time frame of a minimum of five weeks for full service restoration from the time the vessels are dispatched to the various locations,” the regulator said.

MainOne said on Friday that a preliminary analysis suggested some form of seismic activity on the seabed had resulted in a break to its cable. It ruled out human activity as a cause.

3km depth

“Our preliminary analysis would suggest some form of seismic activity on the seabed resulted in a break to the cable”, MainOne said, adding it would obtain more data when the cable is retrieved during repair.

“Given the distance from land, and the cable depth of about 3km at the point of fault, any kind of human activity — ship anchors, fishing, drilling, etc — has been immediately ruled out,” it said. — Maxwell Akalaare Adombila and Nilutpal Timsina, (c) 2024 Reuters