Maintenance disrupts internet access in Algeria
Algeria
,
06 Apr 2020
The government of Algeria has confirmed that scheduled maintenance to the South East Asia–Middle East–Western Europe 4 (SEA-ME-WE4) submarine cable will impact internet services in the country.
National operator Algeria Telecom, which manages the country’s telecommunications infrastructure, announced the cable plans on 25 March 2020. The company’s former CEO, Mohamed Anouar Benabdelouahad made the announcement.
Confirming the development, Algeria’s Minister of Post and Information and Communication Technologies, Brahim Boumzar said efforts have been made to provide alternative access to internet subscribers in the country.
In preparation for the maintenance, authorities leveraged the country’s access to the Hannibal fibre optic sailor, an important telecoms backbone in the Mediterranean basin connecting Tunisia to Italy.
The country had limited options because of the non-availability of Algeria’s other submarine cables including Orval/Alval which links Algiers, Oran and Valence in Spain and Medex which connects Annaba, the United States and Asia via the Mediterranean basin.
Algeria and Tunisia have both been impacted by the maintenance.
“They will also experience a loss of data capacity. The part of the cable that will be affected by this work has a capacity of approximately 700Gigabits,” Benabdelouahad is quoted as saying.
Several other African countries have recorded internet disruptions.
The West African Cable System (WACS) suffered a break in late March 2020 that affected South Africa, but was ultimately fixed by the Ile D'Aix vessel on 4 April 2020.
The South Atlantic Telecommunications (SAT-3) undersea cable was also impacted.
In mid-March 2020, Gabon Telecom also announced its services were disrupted by another to damage the SAT-3/-WASC submarine cable that connects Libreville (Gabon) and Cacuaco (Angola).
The anomaly also impaired supply of internet and international voice services provided by Angola Telecom.