A repair vessel is due to reach the damaged section of the West Africa Cable System (WACS) off the Congo coast today, Wednesday 11 November, to begin physically restoring the undersea internet link. The fault, reported on 29 October, affects the cable segment linking the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and the Republic of Congo, according to an update from Congo Telecom reported by ITWeb Africa.

Congo Telecom said its technical teams had isolated the suspected fault to that stretch of cable, although the exact coordinates of the damage have not been made public.

Why the WACS repair matters

WACS is one of the main submarine cables carrying internet traffic between Europe and Africa. It spans about 14,500 kilometres, connecting South Africa with Portugal and the UK, and has landing stations in 14 countries, including the Republic of Congo, Gabon, Cameroon, Nigeria, Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire.

Despite the loss of the primary circuits, Congo Telecom reported no service disruption for its customers. The operator said its failover and redundancy systems switched traffic to alternative backup links when the fault occurred, keeping internet capacity in place across its subscriber base.

Repeated faults on the Congo route

The latest disruption is not the first on this route. Techpoint Africa reports that Congo Telecom detected a separate fibre cut on 2 September 2026 between its Matombi landing station and Muanda in the DRC, with a repair vessel arriving on 21 September and splicing work then under way.

Earlier outages hit the network in 2020 and August 2023, when underwater landslides damaged the system, and a further fault disrupted internet traffic in the region in January this year. Cable faults in the Gulf of Guinea can be caused by deep-sea seismic activity, anchor dragging or underwater landslides in features such as the Congo Canyon.

Congo Telecom said it was closely monitoring the repair operation and would keep customers informed. The operator has not yet said how long the restoration work will take.