At the recent African Peering and Interconnection Forum (AfPIF), Meta’s Edge Strategy Manager, Ben Ryall, noted the pressing need for stable connectivity. 

He explained how multiple simultaneous submarine and terrestrial outages earlier this year tested Africa’s internet resilience. According to him, Meta had to reroute traffic across alternative systems while maximising available bandwidth through its content delivery network (CDN) controllers.

“When multiple cuts happened, our infrastructure became constrained. We turned up additional capacity on alternative systems, but parts of our metros were temporarily disconnected. Traffic had to be served out of alternative metros, both within and outside the region,” Ryall said.

The outages revealed Africa’s heavy dependence on a limited number of undersea cables. Nigeria alone has suffered over 13,000 fibre cuts in 18 months, a sign of the fragility of terrestrial infrastructure. 

Ryall noted that Meta’s CDN controllers helped mitigate the situation by delivering traffic as locally as possible, but he admitted that extreme failures sometimes force services to be routed outside the country.

Despite these challenges, Meta is doubling down on its commitment to expand its edge presence. The company already operates more than 80 Edge Points of Presence (PoPs) across Africa, with in-network appliances at internet exchanges in Nigeria, Ghana, and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). 

These appliances ensure pictures, videos, and calls are delivered within the country, cutting latency from around 150 milliseconds to under 25 milliseconds, a critical improvement for real-time applications like video streaming and voice services.

Ryall revealed that Meta is not just patching existing gaps but also planning for the long term. “We plan to build a backbone-connected PoP (as32934) in 2026. This will enable us to deliver the full product family in-country. The 2Africa landing in the DRC makes this possible, alongside new metro and terrestrial fibre investments,” he said.

Africa, home to 18% of the world’s population but contributing just 4% of global GDP, faces a high digital divide. With its population projected to hit 2.1 billion by 2050, the demand for reliable internet will only accelerate. 

The expansion of subsea cables like Meta’s 2Africa, the world’s largest at 45,000 km, and new facilities such as Lagos’s LKK2 data centre signal a race to secure Africa’s digital future.

Stakeholders in the industry warn, however, that without more diversified paths and stronger terrestrial networks, the continent risks repeated disruptions, and investments in Africa’s digital infrastructure, such as those made by Meta, must be aware of this.

The tech giant’s strategy is to build redundancy, enhance local interconnections, and ensure that Africans can access the same level of digital experience as users in developed economies.

The exercise is scheduled for Saturday, August 24, 2025, between 6:00 a.m. and 8:00 a.m. MTN disclosed that 101 sites across 15 Local Government Areas will be affected while engineers switch traffic to a new fibre route along the AFCOT–Bawo Village axis in Adamawa State.

“Due to the linear and unprotected nature of the route, services will be interrupted during the maintenance window. The work will be carried out during daylight hours for security reasons,” the company said in a notice to customers.

The disruption will hit users of 2G, 3G, and 4G networks, including about 10 enterprise clients. Areas affected include Girei, Song, Mubi North, Hong, Gombi, Fufore, Mubi South, Madagali, Michika, Maiha, Chibok, and Yola North in Adamawa; Askira/UBA and Shani in Borno; and Nasarawa in Kano.

MTN has apologised to its subscribers but stressed that the upgrade is necessary to restore stability and improve service quality across the corridor.

The planned downtime reveals a much bigger issue in Nigeria’s telecom industry, the high cases of fibre cuts. Network operators lose billions of naira yearly to these incidents, which continue to paralyse services nationwide.

Airtel Nigeria’s Director of Corporate Communications and CSR, Femi Adeniran, recently warned: “On average, operators report multiple incidents daily, disrupting services to millions of Nigerians. Airtel Nigeria alone records a daily average of 43 fibre cuts and in the last six months, a total of 7,742.”

He explained that most of the damage comes from road construction, vandalism, and poor coordination among agencies. The impact goes far beyond dropped calls; businesses, government institutions, and even emergency services are affected whenever cables are tampered with.

National Security Threat

The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has confirmed that operators now report around 1,100 fibre cuts every week. This scale of disruption recently triggered simultaneous blackouts for MTN and 9mobile in Kebbi, Sokoto, and Zamfara States after cuts occurred on both networks on 29 May.

NCC’s Executive Vice Chairman, Dr Aminu Maida, has called the trend alarming and revealed that the Commission has launched a “multi-pronged strategy” involving technical enforcement, security collaboration, and public awareness.

President Bola Tinubu has also declared telecom infrastructure as Critical National Information Infrastructure (CNII)under the Cybersecurity Act, making its protection a matter of national security.

The MTN fibre maintenance in the North-East may only last two hours, but it is a nationwide problem that continues to threaten Nigeria’s digital economy. Without stronger safeguards and coordination, fibre cuts will remain a recurring nightmare for millions of subscribers.