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Major Internet Disruption 2024

Major Internet Disruption Hits Globally in 2024

The Internet Outage of 2024

Major Internet Disruption Hits Africa as Undersea Cables Fail in 2024

Major Internet Disruption 2024, On March 14, a catastrophic internet outage crippled over a dozen countries across Africa. The cause – multiple failures of critical undersea telecommunication cables that form the backbone of the continent’s internet connectivity.

Network operators like MTN Group, one of Africa’s largest providers, confirmed that the ongoing disruptions were the result of faults in several major submarine cable systems. These included the West Africa Cable System (WACS), Africa Coast to Europe (ACE), SAT-3, and MainOne cables.

“Our operations are actively working to reroute traffic through alternative network paths,” MTN stated as they scrambled to mitigate the outage. However, rerouting options were limited given the scale of damage across multiple cable routes.

The simultaneous outage of multiple cable systems caused an unprecedented internet blackout – all came to a grinding halt.

The Causes Behind and Reactions to the Historic Internet Disruption 2024

While internet disruptions in Africa caused by undersea cable faults have occurred periodically in recent years, internet monitoring groups were quick to recognize the magnitude of this event as unprecedented. NetBlocks, a prominent organization that tracks and documents internet outages globally, sounded alarms about the severity of the March 14th incident.

“Data transmission and measurement indicators from our vantage points show a catastrophic disruption to international internet transits for the entire region,” stated NetBlocks Director Isik Mater. “This extremely anomalous event points to a likely simultaneous failure at or in close proximity to multiple subsea cable landing stations connecting Africa.”

Mater described the outage as “amongst the most severe on record for the continent,” based on NetBlocks’ analysis and vast dataset of previous cable fault incidents. The combination of vital cable systems impacted like WACS, ACE, SAT-3 and MainOne left few alternative routing options, resulting in nation-scale blackouts.

The outage immediately sparked grave concerns about sustained impacts to critical digital infrastructure, essential services and economic activities in the heaviest hit countries. In nations like Cote d’Ivoire where over 80% of businesses rely on the internet, there were fears of potential catastrophic disruptions.

Ibrahima Guiro, Executive Director of NTIC Valley, Cote d’Ivoire’s prominent tech hub, painted a grim picture – “With internet connectivity completely severed, we are facing unprecedented impacts to mobile money systems, transportation networks, supply chains, healthcare, government services – virtually every digitized sector has ground to a halt.”

Furthermore, as the world’s leader in mobile web traffic comprising over 62% of total usage, Africa’s mobile-first economies took a body blow. Countless businesses from digital startups to multinationals suddenly found themselves unable to deliver services, process payments or even communicate with customers via web, mobile apps and digital platforms.

“This is an existential crisis for the continent’s digital economy and integration with the global internet,” warned Guiro. As repair timelines remained uncertain in the initial days, contingency plans began taking shape to address potential prolonged wide-scale disruptions.

Cable Repair Efforts Underway

As the initial cable faults were confirmed by network providers, internet analysis firms like Cloudflare quickly identified a pattern indicating widespread impacts. At least 10 countries across West Africa including Ivory Coast, Liberia, Benin, Ghana, and Burkina Faso were heavily affected by the disruptions.

Major operators like Vodacom, South Africa’s leading mobile carrier, also reported “intermittent connectivity issues due to multiple undersea cable failures.” The outage had begun radiating outwards, ensnaring nations like Namibia and Lesotho as networks attempted to reroute traffic around the damaged cables.

“The initial disruption may be a physical cut, but subsequent issues could be of a technical nature,” explained NetBlocks’ Mater. “As networks try to compensate and reroute over remaining cable systems, it actually reduces available capacity in other regions.”

This domino effect from the cumulative cable faults meant the internet blackout was rapidly expanding in scale. Within hours, over a dozen countries across West, East and Southern Africa had been significantly impacted to varying degrees.

The Importance of Cloud Data Protection

The 2024 African internet outage served as a stark reminder of the concentration risk businesses face from reliance on relatively few submarine cable systems. Even with redundancy, the simultaneity and scale of the cable faults temporarily crippled international connectivity.

This highlighted the critical need for robust cloud backup and disaster recovery solutions. By replicating data to cloud platforms like AWS, Microsoft Azure or Google Cloud, companies could maintain access to mission-critical systems and data during such internet disruptions.

Leading managed cloud providers like Primus Cloud Solutions enabled businesses to securely backup applications, servers, databases and more to the cloud with stringent security controls, automated processes and 24/7 monitoring. This decoupling of backups from on-premises infrastructure proved invaluable during the outage.

While internet cables were ultimately restored over several weeks, the 2024 event underscored that businesses must proactively invest in resilient cloud data protection strategies to ensure true business continuity in our digital age.

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