Telecom Services Disrupted By Fiber Cuts In 9 Nigerian States

Data from the Nigerian Communications Commission’s live incident portal showed that during the first week of June 2025, many fibre cut incidents caused significant disruptions to telecommunication services in at least nine states around Nigeria.

According to an analysis of the data, major operators such as Airtel, MTN, 9Mobile, and Globacom were impacted by the outages, which were recorded in the states of Rivers, Katsina, Lagos, Enugu, Benue, Anambra, Imo, Abia, and Akwa Ibom.

Seven of the nine occurrences that were documented throughout the review period were related to fibre cuts, which impacted a variety of services such as mobile data, SMS, voice calls, and USSD.

With three fibre outage occurrences between June 1 and June 5, Airtel was one of the most severely impacted suppliers.

Data services in Degema, Obio-Akpor, and Port Harcourt were interrupted for two hours and forty-four minutes on June 1st in Rivers State.

The next day, a similar disruption that lasted for one hour and twenty-nine minutes took place in the same place.

Ideato North, Owerri Municipal, and Owerri West were among the areas in Anambra and Imo States where the business claimed another outage on June 5 owing to a fiber failure.

All service types, including SMS and USSD, were impacted by this one-hour, nine-minute disruption.

In the same time frame, 9Mobile also reported two significant fiber outages. Daura, Funtua, and Dutsin Ma were among the 11 local government areas that were impacted by a disruption in Katsina on June 1.

All service channels were affected by the one-hour and twenty-three-minute outage.

Significant disruptions were caused by another event in Lagos on June 2 in a number of business districts, including Apapa, Lagos Island, Mushin, and Surulere.

The outage was the longest of the week, lasting four hours and twenty minutes.

On June 2, MTN reported a fiber outage that affected multiple local councils in Enugu State as well as portions of Benue. There were 52-minute service outages in places like Nsukka, Udi, Isi Uzo, and Igbo Eze South.

The live report stated that data, voice, and SMS services were impacted, however the report does not tell the level of the impact on data, voice and SMS services.

Additionally, on June 5, Globacom experienced a fibre outage that caused service interruptions across Abia, Akwa Ibom, Imo, and Rivers, including Aba North, Umuahia South, and Okigwe. The duration of the incident was 46 minutes.

But fibre cuts weren’t the only disturbances.

A power outage that affected service delivery in areas of Borno and Gombe states was reported by MTN on June 3.

Maiduguri, Gombe, Biu, Dukku, and Yamaltu/Deba were among the impacted areas.

Data, voice, and SMS access were all impacted during the 42-minute power outage.

Glo stated in a different instance on June 2 that telecom services in the Federal Capital Territory and Enugu State had been interrupted by vandalism.

For two hours and eight minutes, users in Enugu East, Enugu North, and Enugu South were impacted by that occurrence.

All telecom services, including voice calls, SMS, USSD codes used for banking and financial transactions, and mobile internet, were impacted by the widespread outages.

This affected enterprises, digital services, and financial processes that significantly depend on reliable phone infrastructure in addition to personal connections.

The breakdown of the occurrences shows that Airtel’s infrastructure was impacted twice in two days in Rivers State.

MTN and Glo both caused disruptions in Enugu State, while Katsina and Lagos were the main locations for 9Mobile’s outages.

Anambra, Imo, Abia, Akwa Ibom, Benue, Borno, and Gombe are among the other states that are impacted; in certain places, many operators are at play.

The attacks also demonstrated how vulnerable communication infrastructure is to outside threats. The Glo case of vandalism suggests more intentional sabotage, even if fiber cuttings are frequently the consequence of construction activity or unintentional damage during roadworks.

Similar to this, the MTN power outage highlights the telecom industry’s larger infrastructural issues, especially its dependency on the national electrical supply for transmission hubs.

With its real-time view of service interruptions and response times, the NCC’s new portal offers a degree of openness that industry analysts say has long been lacking.

The magnitude and regularity of these interruptions, however, point to the existence of more serious structural problems.

According to records obtained by Bloomberg, Sunday PUNCH learned that the expected cost of repairs and revenue losses from damaged cables to Nigeria’s telecom sector in 2023 was about N27 billion ($23 million).

According to the documents, the majority of the expenses were borne by Airtel Africa Plc and MTN Nigeria, the largest cellular provider in Africa’s most populous country.

According to the records, MTN experienced over 6,000 fibre cable cuts in the previous year. Customers experienced more than five hours of voice and data disruptions on February 28 due to a road construction company, an oil service company, and someone burning trash in a manhole cutting off its network in three distinct places.

At a cost of about N11 billion, the operator moved 2,500 kilometres (1,553 miles) of vulnerable fibre cables between 2022 and 2023. This was enough to install 870 kilometres of new fibre lines in unreachable places.

The foundation of contemporary communication infrastructure is made up of broadband fibre optic cables, which allow for the high-speed data transfer that supports a variety of social, commercial, and personal endeavours.

The Nigerian Communications Commission, which oversees the sector, has acknowledged this difficulty on multiple occasions and stated that it is prepared to develop solutions.

In order to stop the growing number of fibre cuts in Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial centre, which are reported to have cost operators N5 billion in 2024 alone and caused extensive network disruptions and service outages, telecom executives recently called for stronger controls.

Road excavation accidents continue to be a leading cause, frequently as a result of inadequate communication between telecom carriers and construction companies.

In the absence of a comprehensive solution, consumers will continue to experience unstable network services, and telecom businesses will continue to experience operational inefficiencies and financial strain.

Jude Ighomena, Senior Manager at Broadbased Communications, stated at the recent Policy Implementation Assisted Forum in Lagos that the state experienced over 2,500 fiber cuts last year, resulting in extensive service interruptions and monetary losses.

Wale Owoeye, the CEO of Cedarview Communications Ltd., emphasized during a panel discussion the necessity of designating fiber cables as essential national infrastructure in order to improve protection.

“Financial services, telemedicine, e-governance, and national security all depend on telecom infrastructure.

Telecom infrastructure was designated as Critical National Information Infrastructure by President Bola Tinubu in an official gazette last year.

The deliberate destruction of telecom assets, such as fiber optic cables, towers, data centers, and satellite systems, is now illegal.

To address the ongoing harm to telecommunications infrastructure brought on by road construction and restoration projects, the Federal Government formed a Joint Standing Committee on the Protection of Fibre-Optic Cables.

In order to avoid interruptions to vital communication networks, the project, which is being led by the Federal Ministries of Works and Communications, Innovation, and Digital Economy, intends to improve collaboration between government organizations and telecom providers.

In an effort to increase accountability and transparency in the industry, Nigeria’s telecoms regulator also unveiled new regulations mandating that operators inform customers of significant network outages and reimburse customers for service interruptions longer than twenty-four hours.

The new rules require internet service providers, mobile network operators, and other last-mile service providers to notify customers through media channels of significant disruptions.

The reason for the outage, the locations that were impacted, and the anticipated time frame for service restoration must all be disclosed.

At least one week’s notice must be given before any planned maintenance or service interruptions occur.