The ship connecting the continent

More than 50 engineers and technicians, the crew’s size of the soccer field, cruise the sea around Africa to keep the continent online.

Last year’s internet power outage provides important services as shown when the Internet cable is buried under the sea.

Millions of people fell into the digital darkness, from Garos to Nairobi. Messaging apps crashed and bank transactions failed. It made business and individuals having trouble.

It was Leon Tevain that fixed the multiple cable failure. The ship, which the BBC team had recently spent a week on the Kana coast, has been doing this professional repair for the past 13 years.

“I am connected thanks to me,” he told the BBC that SHURU Arendse, a South African cable conditioner, has worked on ships for more than 10 years.

“People at home work because they bring the main feed,” he says.

“You have a hero to save life -I am a hero because I seek communication.”

His pride and enthusiasm reflect the experienced crew’s feelings for Léon thévenin. Léon thévenin has an 8 -story height and transports a variety of equipment.

The Internet is a network of a computer server, and to read this article, one or more of the 600 fiber cables worldwide can collect data and present them on the screen.

Most of this server is located in a data center outside Africa and optic cable operates along the seabed to connect to the coastal city of the continent.

The data is moved through the hair layer glass fiber wire, often grouped into pairs and protected by various plastics and copper layers, depending on how close it is on the coast.

Benjamin Smith, deputy director of Léon thévenin, said, “Unless the server is not a state, it is necessary to connect. The cable runs from one country to the next country, and connects users to a server that stores data regardless of other online services.

Undersea optical fiber cable is designed to work for 25 years with minimal maintenance, but when damaged, it is generally human activity.

Charles HEALD, who is responsible for the remote operating vehicle (ROV) of the ship, said, “The cable is generally not broken by itself unless it is in the area without a very high current and there is no very sharp rock.

“But in most cases, people are people who should not do and the fishing troller sometimes scratch the seabed. So we usually see scars in trolling.”

Smith also says that natural disasters are especially damaged by cables in some of the continents with extreme weather conditions. He presents an example of the sea of ​​the Congo Democratic Republic, where the Congo River is emptyed by the Atlantic.

“Congo Canyon has a lot of rainfall and low tide can create a current that damages cables.”

Deliberate interruption is difficult to identify. But Leonben’s crew says he did not see obvious evidence of this.

A year ago, three critical cables of the Red Sea -Seacom, AAE -1 and Eig- It was reported by the ship’s anchorIt interferes with millions of connections across Africa, including Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Mozambique.

Just a month later, in March 2024, a separate break from the WACS, ACE, SAT-3, and Mainone cables on the African coast. Nigeria, Ghana, Ivory Coast and Liberia.

What the Internet has to function is burdened when repairs have increased for several weeks.

Another frustration in May: Seacom and Eassy cables were damaged on the coast of South Africa and once again experienced connections between various African countries.

These defects are detected by testing the electricity and signal strength transmitted through the cable.

LOIC Wallerand, a ship missionary, said, “The cable has 3,000 volts and suddenly falls to 50 volts. This means that there is a problem.

There is a local team that can handle defects in shallow water, but if it is detected beyond 50m (164 feet), the ship is called by action. The crew can fix a deeper cable than 5,000m above sea level.

It took more than a week to deal with the repair that Ghana’s BBC has witnessed, but most Internet users have noticed that their traffic is redirected with other cables.

The characteristics of all repairs depend on some of the damaged cables.

If the glass fiber of the core is broken, the data cannot move along the network and must be transmitted to another cable.

But some African countries have only one cable. This means that the damaged cable leaves the affected area without the Internet.

In other cases, the protective layer of the fiber may be damaged, which means that data transfer still occurs but low efficiency. In both cases, the crew must find the exact location of the damage.

In the case of damaged glass fibers, the light signal is transmitted through the cable and the crew can determine the location of the damage through the reflex point.

If there is a problem with the insulation of the cable known as “shunt error”, it is necessary to physically track the position where the electrical signal is transmitted along the cable and the loss is lost.

If you narrow the possible area of ​​defects, the operation will go to the ROV team.

The weight of the ROV, which is built like a bulldozer, is 9.5 tons ROV, which is lowered from the ship to the seabed to the bottom of the water.

About five crew members work together with the crane operator. Once released from harness, called an altar, it floats elegantly.

HEALD said, “It doesn’t sink.”

Through the three cameras of ROV, the team allows you to find the exact defect location when moving to the sea bed.

Once found, ROVs use their arms to cut the affected parts and tie them with a rope dragged to the ship.

Here, the flawed section is separated and connected to a new cable, welded, and it takes 24 hours for the BBC’s work.

After that, the cable was carefully descended to the sea bed, and I made a final trip to check the adjustment so that the ROV was well deployed and updated.

When a warning about the damaged cable was received, the Léon thévenin crew was ready to sail within 24 hours. However, the response time depends on the location of the ship, the availability of the extra cable, and some of the bureaucracy.

Wallerand said, “The permit can take a few weeks. Sometimes we sail into an affected country and wait abroad until the documents are classified. ”

On average, the crew spends more than six months from the sea every year.

“This is part of work.

However, it is difficult to ignore individual sacrifices by talking with the crew between the missions.

They come from various backgrounds and nationalities, including French, South Africa, the Philippines and Madagascar.

Adrian Morgan, a chief steward of a ship from South Africa, missed five consecutive weddings.

“I wanted to quit. It was difficult to stay away from my family, but my wife encouraged me. I do it for them,” he said.

Noel Goeieman, another South Africa’s maintenance fit, is worried that he can miss his son’s wedding in a few weeks if he performs a different task.

“I heard that we will go to Duban [in South Africa]. My son will be very sad because there is no mother. “

“But I retire in six months,” he adds a smile.

Despite the emotional damage, there is a comrade.

If not obligations, the crew plays a video game in the lounge or shares a meal at the Mess Hall of the ship.

Entering a job is as diverse as their background.

GOEIEMAN followed his father’s footsteps and went to the sea to avoid the life of crime.

Smith said, “I was involved in the gang when I was young,” he said. “When I was 25 years old, my child was born and I knew I had to change my life.”

Like others, he is grateful for the role of a ship on the continent.

Ferron Hartzenberg’s top engineer said, “We are the connection between Africa and the world.

Jess Auerbach Jahajeeah additional report.