Internet disruptions: It’s difficult to determine cause of undersea cable cuts – NCA Boss

The National Communications Authority (NCA) has highlighted the difficulty in determining the cause of recent cuts in undersea fibre optic cables, crucial for internet connectivity in Ghana.

The Authority on Thursday, March 14, issued a public alert about multiple disruptions to undersea cables that had significantly affected mobile and fixed data services across the country.

These disruptions, which occurred in Senegal, Cote d’Ivoire, and Portugal, impacted several undersea cables responsible for carrying international traffic, leading to a substantial degradation of data services nationwide.

The NCA also mentioned that Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) had backup systems on other cables and were working tirelessly to restore full services.

In an Eyewitness News interview with Umaru Sanda Amadu on Citi FM on Tuesday, March 19, the Director General of the NCA, Dr Joe Anokye explained that the distance between the four subsea cables makes it extremely difficult to determine the cause of the cuts.

“These 4 cables in Ivory Coast, Cote D’Ivoire, ACE, one of them is called Ace. That’s the one closer. it’s about 118km or so. Between that cable and the next cable is about 11 kilometres and just to put it in context, you know, 11 kilometres is from, like, you know, the general post office to Accra Mall.”

“The distance between that cable SAT-3 and the next cable, which is the main one, is allegedly to be about 67 kilometers, which is like from Accra Mall to Suhum. And all 3 were compromised. The distance between Main One and WACS, it’s also 77 kilometers. This is Suhum to Nkawkaw. So it is very difficult to determine exactly what happened,” he stated.