Internet shutdown disrupts businesses, networking

Most individuals, corporate entities and state agencies in the country that rely on internet for their services and operations were helpless following the destruction of multiple undersea cables for mobile and fixed data services nationwide.

Activities at most media houses, financial institutions, hospitals, other state and private organisations came to a standstill since there was no internet services.

This impacted data services to subscribers across the country as the undersea cables responsible for carrying international traffic was hugely affected.

Beyond Ghana, the situation also affected Senegal and Cote d’Ivoire and some areas in Portugal, a statement from the National Communications Authority indicated.

“This has led to a significant degradation of data services across the country,” it stated.

While people struggled to access internet services, organisations that rely on data access to carry out their operations were unable to work, shutting down their operations abruptly. 

Some members of the public who spoke to the Daily Graphic in separate interviews expressed their frustrations over the situation which some said had affected their daily activities which predominantly rely on data.  

Duke Mensah, a resident of Achimota said he operated an online shop, which operated on social media, but the situation locked him out of work, as he had been unable to take orders from customers.

“I couldn’t sell anything today because of the situation and I don’t know how it will go tomorrow because the messages my internet service providers sent me didn’t indicate when they will resolve the issue so I am deeply worried,” he said.

The Ashanti Regional Editor of the Ghanaian Observer newspaper, Michael Ofosu-Afriyie told the Daily Graphic that he was initially confused because he could not tell what was happening to his internet service.

He described the situation as serious national security threat that must not be allowed to pass without investigation.

“I wonder how things would have been if this was December 7 and we were voting,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Ghana Chamber of Telecommunications in a separate statement said there were outages on multiple submarine optic fiber cables into Ghana, which resulted in a shutdown of internet access.

The statement indicated that some of the cables were down while others are delivering limited capacity.

“This is impacting internet, data and voice over IP (VoIP) services of the members of the chamber, the Mobile Network Operators and the data services providers to varying degrees,” it stated.

It added, “As a result customers and subscribers are currently experiencing service challenges.”

The chamber added that, its affected members were carrying out further investigations as well as work to resolve the current problems to restore services to customers.

Chamber  

The Chief Executive Officer of the Chamber, Kenneth Ashigbey told the Daily Graphic in an interview that there was an ongoing investigation to find the root cause of the destruction of the undersea cables.

He said the issue was being resolved with all seriousness, as the impact was felt by the network providers as well.

Meanwhile, MNOs have sent bulk short message service (SMS) to their millions of subscribers across the country, explaining the situation and rending apologies while assuring them of efforts to resolve the issue. 

The MTN message stated that, “ Y’ello Valued Customer, MTN apologises for the challenges our subscribers are experiencing in accessing data services and reaching our call centre.

This is due to a disruption on our international undersea cables.

Our technical teams are working with our international partners to resolve the issue.

We sincerely apologise for any inconvenience and will keep subscribers updated. Thank you”.  

 Telecel told customers, “Dear Cherish Customers update on internet challenges: The intermittent network challenges with our data service on both mobile and fixed network is due to a disruption on the international undersea cable.

We are working with our international partners to get the issue resolved as soon as possible. 

We sincerely apologies for the inconvenience caused”.