There have been speculations about the status of the damaged cables which caused massive disruptions in the internet operations of many African countries including Nigeria recently.
One of the speculations is that the cables may never get repaired again as they have outlived their lifespan and probably got cut as a result.
However, Chief Executive Officer of West Indian Ocean Cable Company, WIOCC, Chris Wood has dismissed the speculations saying none of the four cables affected in the cut has come to the end of its life.
According to him, Cable cuts happen on a fairly regular basis everywhere around the world, either from a ship’s anchor or a subsea landslide, or seismic events, earthquakes and things like that.
He also revealed that repair efforts are ongoing, even though he was not specific on when repairs will be completed or even what it will cost to do so.
Wood said: “There’s very limited capability to restore those networks at this time because there isn’t the same level of network diversity.
We’re working with our partners to land Equiano in Ghana and we’re working with the government and regulator there to acquire the correct licenses and everything to bring Equiano into Ghana and hopefully that will be done as fast as possible and any future events like this will have a smaller impact.
And in terms of the impact on other countries, there are different levels of impact felt by different countries. Equiano lands in Nigeria, so there are restoration opportunities here. It lands in Togo, so there’s restoration opportunity in Togo, but it doesn’t land in Ghana, for example, or Code d’Ivoire.
One of the reasons these cuts have actually had such a significant impact also is because four or five weeks ago there were cuts in the Red Sea. So three cables were cut in the Red Sea, which also serve Africa.
So, if there hadn’t been the Red Sea cuts, a lot more of the traffic could have been restored going south from Nigeria around South Africa and back up the Red Sea. So this incident has been compounded by the cuts in the Red Sea.
Wood disclosed that the cost of repairing the cables would run into millions of dollars. “It’s millions of dollars, maybe between $1million and $2million per cable, depending on how long it takes the ship to find the cable and repair it.
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“I can’t say exact figures because it depends on the nature of the cuts; how long it takes to repair them, but it’s when you look at the four systems together it is several, several millions of dollars.
To mitigate risks and forestall future occurrences, Wood said WIOCC has invested in new cable, called 2 Africa. The cable is being laid at the moment and it will land in both Lagos and in Akwa Ibom; providing more than two added levels of redundancy because the cable can take traffic North and South. So if the northern section gets cut, it can take traffic support from the South.
