Telecel, an Africa-focused telecommunications company, has paid a courtesy visit on Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, to officially announce the complete rebranding of Vodafone Ghana to Telecel Ghana as well as introduce the leadership of Telecel Group to him.

Both MTN Ghana and Telecel Ghana have today reported some improvement in internet access to customers following days of near total blackout due to the massive subsea cable cuts that happened on Thursday, March 14, 2024.

The cuts occurred on all four major submarine fibre optics cables that connect Ghana to the rest of the world and on which all telecoms and internet service provider in Ghana offer data/internet services to customers.

The four affected cables were as follows:

ACE – which stretches from France (in Europe) to Cape Town (South Africa
WACS – stretching from Portugal (in Europe) to Cape Town
SAT-3 – from Portugal/Spain to Cape Town
MainOne – from Portugal to Cape Town
Per a series of statements from the National Communications Authority, ACE, WACS, and MainOne lost 90% capacity due to the cut, while SAT-3 lost 100% capacity.

Hours of the disruption, AT Ghana was back on track providing service to its customers on the back of some limited backup capacity it had from WIOCC (West India Ocean Cable Company), while K-NET also fell back on its redundant capacity on Angola Cable to resume service with about 40 minutes.

But the two leading telcos in Ghana have been in the woods for days since the disruption, with customers largely unable to do anything meaningful online, except for WhatsApp text, and some limited access to YouTube and Netflix.

ACCRA, March 17 (Xinhua) -- The meltdown of Internet services across Ghana, caused by the disruption of undersea cables over the past few days, has severely affected the country's business activities.

Business owners said the Internet blackout has affected their routine activities and resulted in a loss of revenue due to the abrupt cessation of operations, causing a degree of anxiety and tension among the Ghanaian public.

One manager of a popular online news portal in Ghana, who spoke to Xinhua on condition of anonymity, said, "The disruption of Internet services has been severe. I am not able to work the whole day."

Felix Sogah, an economics tutor at Chemu Senior High School in Tema City, said the Internet shutdown over the past few days has affected his work.

"I do research to update my figures and obtain data for what I teach my students. I have been doing this for years. However, for the past few days, it has been extremely difficult to access the Internet to obtain the data I require for my work," said Sogah.

Angela Aidoo, a Ghanaian mother of two, said she has difficulty accessing the Electricity Company of Ghana's application to pay her electricity bill.

"Because of the Internet disruptions, I cannot buy electricity and have to sleep in darkness when my meter goes off," said Aidoo.

Internet services in the West African country went down late Wednesday, affecting virtually all services that relied on the Internet, including the aviation industry, transportation, telecommunications, education, and health.

Telecommunication service provider Telecel Ghana has announced the commencement of a data refund of expired bundles to its customers following the network disruptions experienced nationwide on Thursday, March 14.

In a statement posted on X, Telecel said it has received 100 percent of its lost connectivity and that its services are being restored.

“Dear cherished customer, Telecel Ghana is pleased to inform you that we [have] secured 100% of our internet capacity and services are being restored. We appreciate your patience and understanding during this period.

“Please be assured that our team has started work on refunds of expired bundles and related issues”, the statement concluded.

In a related development, the Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Chamber of Telecommunications, Ing. Kenneth Ashigbey, has stated that telecommunications service providers are securing new network capacities to tackle the internet blackout facing the country.

Ken Ashigbey in an interview on TV3’s Ghana Tonight programme on Monday, March 18, noted, amongst other things, that the connectivity challenges Ghanaians faced following the cable cuts are not the same currently as “we are beginning to see an improvement in the services”.

“As we talked about a minimum of five weeks to fix those cables, the telecom service providers and then the undersea cable [service providers] would be looking to bring capacity from other sources into the country.

“And so once they’re able to bring adequate capacity to meet what you actually had before the [cable cuts], then you’d have provided the connectivity back to what it was and so you’d not be getting that from those four cables”, Ing. Ken Ashigbey told Keminni Amanor, the host.

He added that telecommunications service providers would be able to go back to the cable source when the repair works are completed, emphasising that “the most important thing is to continue sourcing from other sources as we wait for those cables to be fixed”.

Source: Emmanuel Kwarteng