Afrigather Nigeria desires West African nations to staff up and defend shared telecommunications infrastructure and diversify connectivity to make sure uninterruptible connections within the area.
This follows latest undersea cable cuts that affected connectivity in lots of nations within the area. Dr Aminu Maida, govt vice chairman of the Nigerian Communications Fee, made this name in an announcement delivered on the twenty first West Africa Telecommunications Regulatory Meeting (WATRA) Annual Common Assembly (AGM), held not too long ago in Freetown, Sierra Leone.
Maida, whose message was delivered on the WATRA AGM by Nnenna Ukoha, the deputy director of Public Affairs, NCC, said that the latest submarine cable cuts that resulted in nationwide outages on a number of networks in 12 African nations have raised the pressing want for the subregion to ascertain a mechanism to guard itself from injury to submarine infrastructure and its attendant impression on the subregion.
Referring to a report by Cloudflare, an IT service administration agency, the NCC boss famous that about six nations, together with 4 West African nations, are nonetheless affected by outages.
“Securing telecom infrastructure is paramount for fostering Overseas Direct Funding (FDI) and enhancing investor confidence within the West African sub-region. The reliability and resilience of telecommunications networks are essential elements that buyers take into account when evaluating regional alternatives,” he stated in an announcement on Sunday.
Maida defined that by guaranteeing the safety of those important belongings, the area can entice extra funding, spur financial progress, and improve its world competitiveness. He careworn that the latest cable cuts have highlighted the necessity for a coordinated, multilateral method to defending shared infrastructure throughout member nations.
He proposed a framework “for joint monitoring, danger mitigation, and emergency response procedures for the submarine cables that go by the sub-region.”
The NCC boss additionally argued that along with strengthening its subregional infrastructure resilience, the area wants to advertise the diversification of its connectivity, conduct common capability assessments, and facilitate the designation of telecoms infrastructure as essential nationwide infrastructure in member nations.
On March 14, 2024, undersea cable cuts off the coasts of Cote d’Ivoire and Senegal, disrupted connectivity in Nigeria, Ghana, Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire, and different African nations. The affected cables included the West African Cable System (WACS), the African Coast to Europe (ACE), SAT3, and MainOne.
Whereas connectivity has been restored in Nigeria, full repairs are estimated to take 5 weeks.
