Ursula Owusu-Ekuful
The Minister for Communications and Digitalisation, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, has stated that the internet disruption has had a major impact on almost all industries, affecting economic, commercial, academic and social activities among others.
According to her, this major disruption, which is as a result of the damage to submarine cable, is being worked on to restore service.
Briefing Parliament on the internet outage in the country, the minister indicated that the Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) and subsea cable landing service providers “continue to work with their international partners in the sub-region to progressively add more capacity for data services as it becomes available.”
“Currently ACE has a fibre connectivity between Ghana and Nigeria and the submarine cable providers are leveraging this to get some capacity from Nigeria.
“As at Sunday, March 17, the NCA has been updated on the incremental additional capacity and a monitoring of the situation confirms that the consumer experience is improving,” she noted.
“It is our expectation that this will continue while efforts are underway for full restoration of services,” the minister intimated.
She said the NCA, in treating the national crisis, had been issuing communications to the general public and will continue to do so until full restoration of service is achieved.
“No other country which was fully impacted like Ghana, has restored full capacity,” she pointed out, but added that the submarine cable providers have maintenance agreements with international submarine cable repair companies like Atlantic Cable Maintenance and Repair Agreement (ACMA) to provide repair services for the submarine cables.
“The initial remote investigations by all affected submarine cable providers have given them the approximate locations where the cables have been damaged.
“To commence the repairs, the affected submarine cable operators need permits from the authorities in Cote d’Ivoire and/or Senegal, their vessels will be assigned to retrieve the necessary spares required for the repair work before sailing to the fault location to conduct the physical repair work,” Ursula stated.
The minister said the affected section of the submarine cable would have to be pulled from the seabed onto the ship where it will be spliced by skilled technicians to complete the repair, test it for any defects and then lower it back to the seabed.
“This process might take 1-2 weeks for repairs while about 2-3 weeks of transit time may be required for the vessel to pick up the spares and travel from Europe to West Africa once the vessel is mobilised,” she reiterated.
Use of Satellite
On the use of satellite service as an alternative, the minister indicated that the bandwidth of a satellite back-up for MNOs cannot replace the capacity that has been lost due to the outage.
According to her, satellite back up for consumers is more feasible, however, cost is relatively high.
Mrs. Owusu-Ekuful said the government, as an immediate measure, will licence satellite gateway earth stations, landing rights, and satellite earth station networks.
“Oneweb has already been licenced, Starlink is in the process of being licenced and other operators are being encouraged to land in Ghana,” she disclosed.
By Ernest Kofi Adu, Parliament House