Undersea cable: How Nigerian telcos can avoid another internet disruption – WIOCC CEO

The Chief Executive Officer of West Indian Ocean Cable Company (WIOCC), Mr. Chris Wood has shared strategies that could prevent future internet disruption in Nigeria in case of another undersea cable damage incident.

Speaking during a virtual conference on Monday against the backdrop of the recent damage to 4 undersea cables, Wood said the best strategy to prevent internet service disruption is for the telecom operators to connect to all available cables in the country.

Wood noted that the impacts of the damage to WACS, ACE, Main One, and SAT3 subsea cables would not have been felt if the operators were also connected to the two other cables not affected, Glo-1 and Equiano.

In addition, he said there is also a need for more cables to be landed in the country to provide redundancy, although it is a cost-intensive project. According to him, landing a cable from Europe to Africa will cost about $1 billion.

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Why physical security of cables may not help

While the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has called for joint security of the West African countries to protect the undersea cables, Wood said little can be achieved with physical security because most damages are caused by natural events.

• “In terms of security, these cables are laid on the sea bed, and having deliberate human interference is very difficult, it’s not easy to find the cables unless you know where they are.
• “And at 1000 meters or 3000 meters, where one of the cables was cut, that’s way beyond human interference capability.
• “What sometimes does happen in shallow waters is if ships anchor in the wrong place and there’s a storm. We’re talking about cargo ships or container ships, big ships that can sometimes cut the tables, but again it’s not common.
• “Where you have more cable diversity and more cables landing in a country you have a natural redundancy. Having each of the operators connect to every available cable is the best, that provides resilience,” he said.

Efforts to restore full services

Meanwhile, WIOCC, which landed the Equiano cable in Nigeria has been leading the continent’s response to the cable cuts. According to Wood, WIOCC has restored over 100 links now and brought more people into its OADC data center in Lagos, which has connectivity directly to the Equiano system.

He said the company is also making bigger investments in new systems and has just deployed over $100 million of capital in accessing new subsea systems. He disclosed that the company will be landing the 2Africa cable in Nigeria later this year at two points, one in Lagos and another in Qua Iboe.

• “These cables will further strengthen Nigeria’s position and provide extra redundancy as well,” he said.

For the repair of the damaged cables, Wood said three repair ships have been mobilized.

• “One of them Is coming from South Africa and the other is in Cape Verde. The third is in the UK and they are now starting to head towards the affected area and they will then locate the cable cuts and repair them.
• “The length of the process depends on the weather as well, if the weather is bad they won’t be able to work, so it could take a little longer. But I think everything should be done in three to four weeks, maybe slightly earlier if everything goes to plan,” Wood added.

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