Update (1039 EST): Ivory Coast’s largest internet service providers, Orange CI and MTN are reporting severe degradations. However, Moov Africa internet services are still available as of this update. The cable cut has reportedly been narrowed to around Abidjan, Ivory Coast.
As this publication reported this morning, several West and Central African nations have reported intense internet outages. NetBlocks was the first to report the outage and local African media first attributed the outage to a submarine cable being cut off the coast of the Ivory Coast.
By 0800 EST banking failures were being reported across Nigeria, the Ivory Coast, and Ghana.
Microsoft Azure reported severe network latencies by 0800 EST in South Africa and “West Regions”, probably referring to the aforementioned West African states. Microsoft announced it had initiated an investigation into the matter as Microsoft 365 services were severely degraded for users in the EMEA region. Cloudfare also reported major disruptions in Gambia, Guinea, Liberia, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Benin, and Niger.
By 0900 EST, the Ghana Chamber of Telecommunications attributed the outages to undersea cables but did not clarify if nay had been cut. Thousands of users have reported issues in South Africa.
As of this publication NetBlocks is still observing severe disruptions in the countries listed above.
?? Update: Live network data show today's telecoms disruption in #Africa has intensified; the incident has high impact to West Africa with significant reductions in connectivity evident across the continent; operators report multiple subsea cable failures ? pic.twitter.com/U9PxSk7CbV
— NetBlocks (@netblocks) March 14, 2024
This is developing.
