The Algerian government has warned that scheduled maintenance to the South East Asia–Middle East–Western Europe 4 (SEA-ME-WE4) submarine cable will affect internet services in the country, ITWeb reported. National operator Algeria Telecom, which manages the country's telecommunications infrastructure, announced the cable plans on 25 March. Former CEO Mohamed Anouar Benabdelouahad made the announcement.
Algerian Minister of Post and Information and Communication Technologies Brahim Boumzar said efforts have been made to provide alternative access to internet subscribers. In preparation for the maintenance, authorities used the country's access to the Hannibal fibre optic cable, an important telecoms backbone in the Mediterranean basin connecting Tunisia to Italy.
The country had limited options because of non-availability of Algeria's other submarine cables including Orval/Alval, which links Algiers, Oran and Valence in Spain, and Medex which connects Annaba, the US and Asia via the Mediterranean basin.
Algeria and Tunisia have both been affected by the maintenance and Benabdelouahad said the two countries
will suffer a loss of data capacity. The part of the cable that will be affected by this work has a capacity of approximately 700 Gigabits.
Several other African countries have recorded internet disruptions.
