Sierra Leone has faced some internet outages at a national scale and international scale, Madam Bah said significant investment in the current internet infrastructure over the years meant that Sierra Leone was in prime position to deal with the problem swiftly.
Like so many countries, Sierra Leone relies on the ACE submarine cable which runs from Europe right down the West Coast of Africa, to South Africa. The cable connects more than 455 million people in more than a dozen countries. Problems in the corridor can affect any other country along the line. Sierra Leone has only one Ace submarine cable, running from Paris, Lisbon right down to Cape Town.
Executive Director of Zoodlab, Mamoud Idris said Sierra Leone’s cable is ageing.
“This cable is getting old, it was laid in 2012 and we are having problems with it. The risk of the cable cutting is increasing, intentionally or unintentionally the cable is being cut”
Idris said all the conversation right now is to make sure internet is available for everyone. Significant investment in the sector has seen mobile coverage in the country expand significantly to cover 96% of the population with over 5 million people owning a SIM card for mobile phones.
Whiles finding a quick fix for internet outages, Madam Bah said the country is also working towards a long term sustainable solution.
“Ultimately for true protection and to limit our vulnerability, we need two cables at any given time. The private sector is forming a consortium, looking at Meta 2 Africa cable. On the government level we are working with ECOWAS, they have a program to support countries with one undersea internet cable.”
