Tag: submarine cable

Governments, industry representatives and international organizations representing over 70 countries have reaffirmed the need to strengthen support for subsea cables which are at the heart of global digital communications.

The reaffirmation was made at the International Submarine Cable Resilience Summit 2026 during which a declaration was issued at the summit’s closing in Porto, Portugal, together with a set of recommendations developed by the International Advisory Body on Submarine Cable Resilience.

The declaration offered guidance to bolster international cooperation across the public and private sectors to boost the resilience of this vital shared infrastructure, ranging from shortening cable repair times to supporting underserved regions.

Submarine telecommunications cables carry most of the world’s data traffic. About 500 of the cables extending more than 1.7 million kilometres serve as the backbone of global connectivity, economic and social development, and digital access for people, institutions and businesses on every continent.

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 “When it comes to critical digital infrastructure like submarine cables, resilience is both an end-to-end imperative and a shared responsibility. The Porto Summit outcomes reaffirm our commitment to strengthening global cooperation that can make a real difference in policy engagement, operational readiness, and investment decisions,” International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Secretary-General Doreen Bogdan-Martin, said.

The summit was organized by Portugal’s national regulatory authority for communications, ANACOM, in partnership with the ITU and the International Cable Protection Committee (ICPC). It also hosted a meeting of the International Advisory Body on Submarine Cable Resilience, which was established by ITU and the ICPC in 2024.

“I am deeply proud to have had the unique opportunity to guide such a distinguished group of leaders from both the public and private sectors, representing all regions of the world. The International Advisory Body was created to deliver concrete and meaningful impact, and I firmly believe it is already doing so. This impact is particularly significant for regions, countries, and remote islands where economic incentives for rapid response mechanisms are more limited, rendering them especially vulnerable to submarine cable disruptions,” Chairwoman of ANACOM and Co-Chair of the Advisory Body, Prof. Sandra Maximiano, said.

Following up on last year’s inaugural summit in Abuja, Nigeria, the Porto event featured the second physical meeting of the Advisory Body.

 The guidance presented by the Advisory Body in Porto is aimed at streamlining submarine cable permitting, maintenance, and repair processes; improving legal framework and regulatory procedures; encouraging cable geographic diversity and redundancy, especially for Small Island Developing States, Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries, and underserved regions.

Others are encouraging the adoption of industry best practices for assessing, mitigating and responding to risks to submarine cable infrastructure; encouraging enhanced cable protection through better planning across marine sectors; building cable capacity and supporting innovation through training and use of technologies.

 “It is encouraging to see the cooperation between governments and industry in developing these recommendations. We look forward to their implementation to strengthen cable protection and resilience,” ICPC Chairman Dean Veverka, said.

More than 99 per cent of international data traffic is carried by subsea cables. Over 200 faults are reported globally each year, with disruptions to communications impacting economies, access to information and public services, affecting the daily lives of billions of people.

The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) yesterday appealed to the global community for collective action and collaboration against submarine cables disruptions and cuts that could slow down the growth and development of digital economy in the world.

The Secretary General of ITU,  Doreen Bogdan-Martin, said at the moment, the digital economy accounted for the greater parts of the world’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and it is expected to peak at $16.5 trillion by 2028.

He said global attention should be focused on measures that would sustain the spate of rapid developments in the digital economy sector with submarine cables connectivity accounting for 95 per cent of its backbone.

“The past two decades have seen a vast digital shift, with new socio-economic opportunities as well as challenges. Since the 2005 World Summit on the increasing society, the number of internet users back then in 2005 stood at one billion.

“At the end of last year, we had 5.5 billion internet users. And today, the global digital economy is growing faster than global GDP and is expected to reach $16.5 trillion by 2028.

“Over the next decade, some estimate that more than two-thirds of the new value creation could come from digitally-enabled companies,” he said.

Bogdan-Martin made the remarks at the Transcorp Hotel Abuja during the opening ceremony of the ITU International Submarine Cable Resilience Summit hosted by Nigeria for the first time.

The summit which is being attended by more than 300 delegates across the world from the 194 ITU-member countries had the Minister of Communications, Innovations and Digital Economy, Dr Bosun Tijani and the Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) Dr Aminu Wada Maida in attendance.

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Others in attendance were the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Communications, Innovations and Digital Economy, Engr Faruk Yabo, the Director-General of NITDA, Malam Kashifu Inuwa, the National Commissioner of NDPC, Dr Vincent Olatunji and the Managing Director of NigComSat, Mrs Jane Egerton-Idehen in attendance.

“As our economies and digital innovations grow, and as we seek to bring meaningful connectivity to all, so does our reliance on digital infrastructure like submarine cables. This global undersea network is emblematic of the innovation and the investment required to connect the world meaningfully,” Bogdan-Martin said.

The Secretary General lamented that despite the resilience of undersea cables, about 200 disruptions are witnessed yearly, while fixing them across continents and countries are difficult and slow.

The ITU scribe noted that the global economy always feel the impacts of submarine cable cuts and disruptions, stressing that “submarine cables are put in place by an interplay of technology, business, and policy that has to be considered holistically.”

“That’s why this summit includes a diversity of stakeholders that are essential to this conversation”, the ITU boss added.

Bogdan-Martin who praised Nigeria for hosting the event, called on the ITU Advisory Body, the academia and other stakeholders to work towards a lasting solution to the challenges of undersea cables cuts and disruptions across the globe.

The Co-chair of the Advisory Board for ITU, Prof Sandra Maximiano, underscored the importance of the International Advisory Board for Submarine Cable Business and economy at the Summit, saying that positive developments have been witnessed in the industry.

“It is no coincidence that we are meeting here in Abuja today, given that several cable cuts occurred in March last year affecting multiple countries in West Africa, including Nigeria, Cote d’Ivoire, and Senegal.

“This incident highlighted the critical importance of subsea cable businesses in this region, with some estimates indicating that over 70 million customers were infected.

“While Nigeria is served by several submarine cable systems, many of which also land in my home country, Portugal, including Maniwari, the Africa coast to Europe, Etihanu, and to Africa, other Western African countries are served by only a single submarine cable,” Maximiano said.

Dr Tijani in his remarks welcomed the ITU delegates to Nigeria, and urged participants to take advantage of the hospitality of the Nigeria.

Speaking on submarine cables issues, Dr Tijani said:” This is not just a technical or industry-specific challenge. It is a global imperative that affects the financial market, trade, education, health systems, and even governance.

“Under the leadership of President Bola Tinubu, Nigeria is committed to strengthening its digital infrastructure and advancing policies that support connectivity, innovation, and economic growth.

“We are taking decisive steps as a nation to recognize and protect the government’s infrastructure as critical national infrastructure, aligning with our broader efforts to enhance digital resilience across all sectors.

“As a government, we are also deeply invested in leveraging digital property infrastructure, promoting global access, and expanding broadband penetration, ensuring that connectivity remains a catalyst for economic transformation and revolution.

 “The outcomes of this summit will not only influence policy and investment decisions, but also serve as the foundation for global cooperation and long-term resilience.”

One of the companies leading the restoration of internet services disrupted as a result of four submarine cable cuts, West Indian Ocean Cable Company (WIOCC), said three ships have been deployed to identify and fix the points at which the cables were cut.

Its CEO, Chris Wood, in a virtual interaction, said the ships would come from South Africa, Cape Verde and the United Kingdom (UK), adding that depending on the weather condition, it might take between three and four weeks to fix the broken cables.

He said: “In terms of the repair time of the cable, the ships have been mobilized. They are probably going to be on station towards the end of the month. And then depending on the extent of the damage, it could take another two or three weeks to repair all the cables.

“So we are  thinking probably sometime in the middle of April, possibly towards the end of April, have all the cables repaired and the repair will be carried out by each cable consortium or owner, rather than individual carrier- we are part of some of those consortiums and part of the process.

“One of the ships is coming up from South Africa and other is in Cape Verde. And the third is in the UK and they are now starting to head towards the affected area and they will then locate the cable cuts and repair them. And that process depends on the weather as well, if it’s bad weather and they can’t operate in it, if it’s stormy seas, it could take a little longer.

But I would think three to four weeks, maybe slightly earlier if everything goes to plan.”

Wood said the company has restored over 100 links now and brought more people into the company’s data center in Lagos, the OADC data centre, which has connectivity directly into the Equiano system, which at the moment is the only major system still in operation serving most of West Africa, in particular Nigeria.

Speaking on the cause of cable cuts, he said: “Let me give a   little bit of background on the cuts- there’s been a lot of speculation in the press about what caused the cuts of West Africa off the coast of Cote, d’Ivoire and some of it is accurate, but some of it is also not accurate

“What we believed  happened  and it’s still is speculation because until the ships get to the site and repair the cables, it won’t be possible to say exactly what happened, but what we believe has happened is that there’s been a subsea event in the Canyon that flows, that comes out of going offshore from the coast of Cote d’Ivoire.

“And when you look at the timings of the various cable cuts over a period of about 6 or 7 hours starting in the early morning and the cables got cut by what we think is a turbidity event, which is where you have a landslide effectively rolling down the Canyon a little bit like an avalanche in a mountain on snow where the debris rolls down the hill in a subsea and has taken out the four cables one after the other.

“And the reason that Equiano hasn’t been hit is because it is laid much further offshore and at the moment only lands in Nigeria and Togo and then it goes straight out offshore for several 100 kilometers and it’s outside the influence zone of this Canyon.”

Wood said contrary to insinuation about the submarine cables reaching their end of life, he said the affected four cables including MainOne Cable, West African Cable System (WACS), African Coast to Europe (ACE) submarine cable and SAT3 subsea cable systems.

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“So there are four cables that have been affected; none of them have come to the end of life. Cable cuts happen on a fairly regular basis everywhere around the world, cables get cut for a number of reasons, from a ship’s anchor or a subsea landslide in this case, potentially, or a seismic event, earthquakes and things like that. So cables get cut on a fairly regular basis.

“The difference with this one is it has cut four cables at the same time and that led to the significant outages that we’ve seen. But all the cables are repairable. What will happen is that the ships will get to the area affected, they will   bring the cable, they will locate where the cable is, they’ll bring it up to the surface, and then they will find the other end of the cable further up the coast, they will   bring that up to the surface, and then they will   splice   a new piece of cable in between, effectively, the way an    electrical circuit is repaired. They will   put a new piece of cable between the two broken ends and then drop it back down to the sea floor. All of the cables are repairable. It just depends on how long it takes to find the ends of those cables, and then the extent of the damage to the cable, fix them and let them down back to the seabed, but they are all repairable,” Wood said.

On the cost of repairing the damaged cables, he said it is going to run into millions of dollars. “It’s millions of dollars, maybe between $1million and $2million per cable, depending on how long it takes the ship to find the cable and repair it. And those costs are borne by the cable owners themselves. And then it’s a cost that we will factor into our businesses because these things do happen.

“I can’t say exact figures because it depends on the nature of the cuts; how long it takes to repair them, but it’s when you look at the four systems together it is several, several millions of dollars.

“And in terms of the impact on other countries, yes, there has been different levels of impact have been felt by different countries. Equiano lands in Nigeria, so there are restoration opportunities there. It lands in Togo, so there’s restoration opportunity in Togo, but it doesn’t land in Ghana, for example, or Code d’Ivoire.

“So there’s very limited capability to restore those networks at this time because there isn’t the same level of network diversity. We’re working with our partners to land Equiano in Ghana and we’re working with the government and regulator there to acquire the correct licenses and everything to bring Equiano into Ghana and hopefully that will be done as fast as possible and any future events like this will have a smaller impact,” he said.

On whether the cables could be monitored real time, he said it was possible to do so. “Actually there is a real time monitoring system that monitors all major shipping. Each major ship has a transponder which shows its location and that is tracked and if a large ship gets very close to a cable there, they’re always possibilities for warning to keep away.

“If it’s clearly drifting or something like that, but the ships do travel across the top of the cables, which are several 1000 meters down on a regular basis. What tends to happen is if there is a cut you can pinpoint potentially the ship that did it. If it indeed was a ship that cut a cable through this system, there is one monitoring capability. In terms of the time it takes to contact a ship, it’s quite challenging, I would imagine, to actually prevent such an occurrence because you wouldn’t know it’s happening until it has It almost happened that you can see a ship near a cable, but you don’t know whether the anchors down or if there’s an issue. So it’s possible to see what’s   happening, but to prevent such a thing, and I think it would be very difficult,” he added.