A damaged subsea cable off the coast of Abidjan is knocking out internet and data services across Ghana and parts of West Africa — and nobody knows yet how long the disruption will last.
MTN Ghana confirmed the fault on Saturday, June 28, saying faults in the undersea cable infrastructure are affecting international connectivity for its customers. The company said it is working with international partners to restore services but stopped short of giving any timeline for a full fix.
What is Actually Broken
The damage sits beneath the ocean off Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire — a stretch of water that carries a significant share of West Africa's international internet traffic. Physical faults at that depth do not get patched remotely. Specialist repair vessels have to sail out, locate the break, and fix it manually, a process that can stretch from days into weeks depending on weather and vessel availability.
Ghana's internet access, like that of most countries in the region, relies on a small number of these subsea cable systems to connect the continent to the rest of the world. That concentration means a single fault can ripple across entire nations almost instantly.
This Has Happened Before
West Africa is not new to this kind of disruption. A series of cable faults in early 2024 slashed international bandwidth across multiple countries in the region for weeks, affecting businesses, students, and everyday users who depend on stable connectivity for work and communication. The scale of that event — and the slow, painful recovery — made it clear the region's digital infrastructure has very little redundancy to fall back on.
The current Abidjan fault is arriving at a similar vulnerability. With a thin margin between full service and widespread failure, even a single break in one of these cables can have an outsized impact on millions of users. Those tracking online safety and infrastructure resilience across the continent have long flagged subsea cable dependence as a critical weakness for African connectivity.
MTN Ghana's Response
MTN Ghana apologised to affected customers and said the company will continue to provide updates as the situation develops. The operator did not name the specific cable system affected, nor did it detail what rerouting or backup measures, if any, are being activated while repairs are underway.
For now, customers across Ghana and neighbouring countries should expect degraded international browsing speeds, disrupted video calls, and slower cloud services until the repair is complete. The broader story — of a region that is grown deeply dependent on infrastructure it cannot always quickly fix — remains as urgent as ever.