The National Communications Authority (NCA) has disclosed that repairs to the recently broken undersea cables that caused the country’s total internet outage last March have been completed.
Dr. Joe Anokye, Director-General of the NCA, stated that work on all four damaged cables was completed between April 6 and May 8, 2024.
He made the announcement on Friday during the 2024 World Telecommunications and Information Society Day celebration in Accra.
The day was on the theme “Digital Innovation for Sustainable Development.” On March 14, this year, Ghana’s data services were disrupted due to underwater cable damage.
All four undersea cable landing service providers in Ghana (ACR, MainOne, SAT-3, and WACS) were disconnected from international data services, resulting in a complete internet shutdown.
Dr. Anokye said that the repair work on the broken cables was complete, and internet services were fully restored.
According to the subsea cable service providers, all four cable faults were discovered near the crossing with Le Trou Sans Fond Canyon, an underwater canyon off the coast of Abidjan.
Dr. Anokye indicated that the Authority had begun implementing the country’s satellite services policy framework to mitigate the effects of recent disruptions caused by damaged undersea cables.
This would enable the public to access innovative satellite services in addition to those available on the ground.
Mrs. Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, Minister of Communications and Digitalization, said the government was on track to make Ghana the ICT hub of West Africa, emphasizing that it had adopted some critical steps that would serve as the foundation for achieving that target.
The Minister said the government would complete the construction of the remaining 1,006 rural telephony sites by September of this year, after having already built 1,010 facilities nationwide. She said this would extend data connectivity to the 20 per cent of the population who were currently unconnected.
World Technology and Information Day is observed on May 17 every year to raise awareness of the benefits citizens and economies could derive from the use of the internet and communication technologies (ICT) to bridge the digital divide.
