Bank operations are reduced due to an undersea cable cut as engineers work to restore services
The undersea cable slashing on Thursday messed up the broadband internet connection for Nigeria and West African countries. This caused a big headache for banks, financial institutions, telecom companies, and similar businesses on Friday, making them have to cut back on their usual activities.
Clients of the banking and telecommunications companies were also feeling disappointed as they were unable to conduct important transactions.
The statement was issued by the Director of Public Affairs at the Nigerian Communications Commission, Reuben Muoka, has verified that the disruptions in the undersea cable have caused interruptions in data and voice services across the West African coast.
The NCC said, “A combination of cable cuts, resulting in equipment faults on the major undersea cables along the West African Coast, have negatively impacted data and fixed telecom services in several countries of West Africa, including Nigeria, Ghana, Senegal, and Cote d’Ivoire, among others,”said that the reductions took place in Cote d’Ivoire and Senegal, resulting in subsequent disturbances in Portugal.
“Cable companies – West African Cable System and African Coast to Europe in the West Coast route from Europe – have experienced faults, while SAT3 and MainOne have downtime.
“Similar undersea cables providing traffic from Europe to the East Coast of Africa, like Seacom, Europe India Gateway (EIG), Asia-Africa-Europe 1 (AAE1), are said to have been cut at some point around the Red Sea, resulting in degradation of services across on these routes. In Nigeria and other West African countries, Internet access and speed have experienced disruptions in the six networks of service providers in the affected countries.”
The commission noted that repair work has started on the damaged cables, and services are slowly being reinstated.
“They have promised to work round the clock to ensure that services are restored to the affected countries within the shortest possible time. It is important to bring this information to the knowledge of corporate and individual consumers on these services,” NCC statement partly added.
According to certain bank officials, the financial losses stemming from the undersea cable cuts were extensive, although an exact figure has not been determined as of now.
