WIOCC, the parent company of Open Access Data Centres (OADC), said 35 networks across West African countries, Nigeria inclusive, have been restored to full capacity resilience.

Mr. Chris Wood, WIOCC’s CEO, who gave the update via a virtual press conference, explained that it will take another four weeks to fully restore internet services to all network operators that are connected to the affected four submarine cables that came from Europe, with landing points along the West African coast.

WIOCC ’s highly resilient network, with hyperscale capacity on every major system is the largest in Africa and ideally placed to swiftly deliver restoration solutions to hyperscalers, fixed and mobile carriers, internet service providers and other clients, enabling them to quickly re-establish key traffic routes into, within and out of Africa, thereby minimising performance degradation for their end-customers.

According to Wood, it will cost a total of about $2 million to achieve full restoration to a single subsea cable, depending on the extent of the cut on the cable.

This brings it to a total of about $8 million to fix the affected four submarine cables that were affected by the cut.

Wood however said the owners of the affected cables would bear the cost of restoration of the individual subsea cables.

Affected Subsea cables:

1. MainOne Cable,
2. West African Cable System (WACS),
3. African Coast to Europe (ACE) submarine cable and
4. SAT3 subsea cable systems.

All four subsea cables came from Europe and they all have landing points at the coast of West African countries, including Nigeria.

Wood who ruled out the possibility of sabotage or any other factor that have been speculated to be the cause of the multiple cuts on the affected four submarine cables, said from the ongoing restoration exercise, he suspected that the cables were affected by heavy landslides from the coast of Cote d I’ voire, where debris from landslides effect may have rolled down into the ocean to cause the damages.

He however said ships have been deployed to the affected areas to carry out repairs on the affected cables, and that until the ships arrive in few days time to effect repairs and investigate the real cause of the submarine cable cuts, it would be difficult to ascertain the real cause of the multiple cuts on the affected submarine cables.

“Since the subsea cable cut, we have restored internet services to 35 networks across West Africa, amounting to 2.5 Terabytes capacity with over 100 links. We recently deployed equipment worth $100 million in accessing new cuts on undersea cables. What we did was to use our capacity on the Equiano cable that was not affected by the cut to restore services to other facilities and operators currently suffering outages in Lagos and elsewhere on the continent.”

• Recall that the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), had called for a coordinated and multilateral approach by the region to protect shared telecommunications infrastructure, and diversify connectivity to ensure uninterruptible connections.

Dr. Aminu Maida, the executive vice chairman of the  Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), made the submission in a statement delivered at the 21st West Africa Telecommunications Regulatory Assembly (WATRA) Annual General Meeting (AGM), which held in Freetown, Sierra Leone, from the 19th to 22nd March 2024.

Dr. Maida, whose message was delivered at the WATRA AGM by the Deputy Director, Public Affairs of the Commission, Nnenna Ukoha, stated that the recent submarine cable cuts that resulted in nationwide outages on multiple networks in 12 African countries has raised the urgent need for the sub-region to establish a mechanism to protect itself from damage to submarine infrastructure and its attendant impact on the sub-region.

In his reaction, Wood said subsea cables all over the world could get cut for various reasons, which could be as a result of landslides, propeller from ships, among other reasons.

“What Nigeria and other West African countries need are more cables landing at the shores of the country that will lead to huge redundancy. The idea of physical security may not work because the cables are laid on the bed of the sea and no one can see exactly their locations to warrant physical protection. So having more cables is the best security measure and not physical security,” Wood said.

Although Wood said it would cost about $1 billion to berth a subsea cable from Europe to West Africa, he however insisted that multiple cable system remained the best form to address cable cuts that occur all over the world.

The WIOCC CEO further said the company’s policy of strategic deployment of converged, open-access digital infrastructure at a hyperscale level and delivery of unrivalled resiliency, enables it to meet and anticipate the needs of Africa’s wholesale community with sufficient scale and network diversity to address even the most challenging situations.

He said WIOOC was established 15 years ago to provide backbone services to organisations and their networks across West Africa.

The post Subsea Cable Cut: WIOCC Restores 35 Networks | May Take Four Weeks to Restore Others | Processes to Gulp $8m appeared first on Tech | Business | Economy.

WIOCC’s highly resilient network, with hyperscale capacity on every major system is the largest in Africa and ideally placed to swiftly deliver restoration solutions to hyperscalers, fixed and mobile carriers, internet service providers and other clients, enabling them to quickly re-establish key traffic routes into, within and out of Africa, thereby minimising performance degradation for their end-customers.

According to Chris Wood, group CEO of WIOCC, “Immediately the four subsea cables were severed off the coast of Cote d‘Ivoire our engineering, operations and field teams swung into action.

“They have been working tirelessly for the last 48 hours with our strategic network partners and equipment suppliers and will, within the next 24 hours, have activated an unprecedented additional 2 Terabits per second (Tbps) of capacity across the unaffected cables in our network to support the capacity needs of other network operators and hyperscalers. Our clients connected directly at Open Access Data Centres (OADC) data centres in South Africa and Nigeria are already protected from the impact of the subsea outages due to the unique levels of redundancy and scale of the WIOCC core backbone. In Lagos, the Equiano cable, in which WIOCC owns a fibre pair, has not been affected by the incident off Cote d‘Ivoire. WIOCC lands the cable directly into the OADC data centre, establishing the most resilient digital ecosystem hub in Lagos and offering the most direct connectivity to Europe and South Africa. As a result, OADC’s data centres and WIOCC’s hyperscale network are playing a key role in restoring services to other facilities and operators currently suffering outages in Lagos and elsewhere on the continent.”

“Our priority is to ensure minimal disruption and maximum resilience for our clients,” added Ryan Sher, Group Chief Operating Officer at WIOCC. “We have invested heavily in deploying diverse, highly scalable national and international connectivity to support the uptime requirements of our wholesale client base. Investing at scale means that we consistently carry extra capacity, ensuring we are able to rapidly turn up or re-route capacity to address unexpected network disruptions. It also enables us to deploy short-term restoration solutions for other operators on a case-by-case basis. Any service provider affected by these outages, whether an existing WIOCC client or not, is encouraged to contact us to explore options.”

He said that WIOCC’s policy of strategic deployment of converged, open-access digital infrastructure at a hyperscale level and delivery of unrivalled resiliency, enables it to meet and anticipate the needs of Africa’s wholesale community with sufficient scale and network diversity to address even the most challenging situations.

The post WIOCC’s Strategic Role in Addressing Subsea Cable Outages appeared first on Tech | Business | Economy.

WIOCC, Africa’s digital backbone, has landed 2Africa – the world’s largest subsea cable system – into world-class, carrier-neutral data centre OADC Durban, owned and operated by WIOCC Group company, Open Access Data Centres (OADC), in KZN, South Africa.

This offers the province and country a huge increase in international capacity and the promise of more reliable internet and other connectivity services.

Chris Wood, WIOCC Group Chief Executive Officer, commented: “This latest major international cable landing is another example of WIOCC Group playing a key role in building Africa’s digital infrastructure and accelerating the continent’s digital transformation through the delivery of converged open digital infrastructure. 

ALSO READ: WIOCC’s OADC Opens Data Centers in Johannesburg, Lagos

“We are pleased to be working with our partners in the 2Africa project, bringing faster, more reliable internet to local businesses and consumers, and making an enduring contribution to communications in Africa. The subsea cable system is enabling more communities to access transformative online resources, from education and healthcare to jobs and financial services, and experience the economic and social benefits of seamless connectivity.” 

Economic benefits

The 2Africa cable project was launched in May 2020 to significantly increase the capacity, quality and availability of internet connectivity between Africa and the rest of the world, and a recent study by RTI International predicts that within two to three years of becoming operational, 2Africa will spur economic impact worth US$26.2 billion to US$36.9 billion, equivalent to 0.42-0.58% of Africa’s GDP.

The arrival of the 45,000km, 180 Terabits per second (Tbps) 2Africa cable system in Amanzimtoti, 25km south of Durban, will bring much-needed additional international capacity for internet and other services, support high-speed internet delivery and provide greater diversity, which will benefit businesses and individuals throughout South Africa.

Benefits of Amanzimtoti landing

This landing, into OADC’s 4MW-capable open access OADC Durban facility in Amanzimtoti, is 2Africa’s fourth on the coast of South Africa – two in the Western Cape (Yzerfontein and Duynefontein) and one in the Eastern Cape (Gqeberha).

• Service uptime can be maximised by utilising this new OADC Durban-2Africa route for international traffic because, apart from the METISS system, no other international cable lands in Amanzimtoti.

• Organisations can quickly and easily access 2Africa’s international connectivity to extend their operations in KZN and elsewhere in South Africa, as OADC Durban is open access and carrier-neutral.

• The cable system’s landing in Amanzimtoti also offers the potential for increased regional job creation in sectors that rely on direct international connectivity, such as data centres, call centres and software development, which can help contribute to both local and national socio-economic development.

OADC Durban went live in April 2022 and will ultimately deliver 4,200m²of flexible space, supporting 2,000m² of IT white space, as well as A-Grade tech park office space.

It delivers the location, scale and client focus required to maximise opportunities for carriers, content providers, fixed and mobile network operators, and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to host their equipment and applications, and to increase the speed and reliability of the connectivity and services they provide to their customers.

Landing 2Africa into carrier-neutral OADC Durban ensures that service providers are able to access international capacity and onward, domestic and intra-Africa connectivity on a fair and equitable basis, which will encourage and support the development of a healthy internet ecosystem.

Once the system has been fully deployed, businesses and consumers will benefit from improved quality, reliability and lower latency for internet services, including telecommuting, high-definition video streaming and advanced multimedia and mobile video applications.

The 2Africa project underpins further growth of 4G, the continued roll-out of 5G and fixed broadband access, by providing improved connectivity to underserved and rural areas; and network resilience between KZN and the rest of South Africa.

As a gateway to international connectivity, the cable’s landing in Amanzimtoti will also help to drive the upgrade and expansion of telecommunications networks in KZN and surrounding provinces.

Wood concluded, “As a fibre pair investor in the 2Africa systems, we are greatly expanding and diversifying WIOCC’s capacity inventory to ensure that we continue to serve the evolving needs of our content provider and cloud operator clients, as well as those of the wider wholesale community.” 

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