Nigeria Cut-off from the internet
For the past one week, Internet connection in Nigeria has been a nightmare owing to the problem on the SAT-3 cable that links Nigeria to the world.
The downtime is said to have grounded the activities of cyber cafes and other institutions including banks. Bank were said to be struggling with alternatives that are not dependable.
“SAT-3 is currently the only fibre optic cable serving West Africa,” explained Ladi Okuneye, chief marketing officer of Suburban Telecom, which provides the majority of Nigeria’s bandwidth.
Major Dailies in Nigeria reported that there is a damage to the cable ni Benin…
“Large parts of West Africa are struggling to get back online following damage to an undersea cable.
The fault has caused severe problems in Benin, Togo, Niger and Nigeria.
The blackout is thought to have been caused by damage to the SAT-3 cable which runs from Portugal and Spain to South Africa, via West Africa.
Around 70 percent of Nigeria’s bandwidth was cut, causing severe problems for its banking sector, government and mobile phone networks.
Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has said there is no damage on NITEL SAT-3 and services on that platform have not been disrupted.
The Commission also apologized to Nigerians whose businesses and personal lives have been adversely affected by the interruption and said it is closely monitoring the situation.“
While Business day reported that the cut-off was due to NITEL debt to the SAT-3 Consortium
“The ‘SAT-3 Consortium’ cut Nigeria off the network because the troubled state owned Nigerian Telecommunications Limited (Nitel), sole custodian and commercial operator of the facility in Nigeria, failed to pay its dues.
The SAT-3/ WASC is a fibre-optic submarine communications cable linking Portugal and Spain to South Africa, with connections to several West African countries along the route. It delivers heavy bandwidth for data, Internet and other uses which Nitel rents out to other telecom operators and deploys to service its own network.
BusinessDay gathered that Nitel had paid $300,000 maintenance fee but this had since expired without being renewed.”
I went through some cyber café around Lagos most are under locks and keys. Few that works are using alternative links, their cyber café are jam-packed with people waiting to browse the internet.
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