Nigeria Cameroon Submarine Cable System (NCSCS): latency up to 5.8× normal, 16 Apr 2026
What we measured
| Cable | Nigeria Cameroon Submarine Cable System (NCSCS) |
| Segment | Kribi, CM → Lagos, NG |
| Detected | 2026-04-16 09:01 UTC |
| Resolved | 2026-04-16 14:00 UTC |
| Duration | 4h 58m |
| Observed latency | 20.6 ms |
| Baseline | 49.9 ms · 5.77× |
| Increase | +477% |
| Severity | critical |
Who is affected
Countries where Nigeria Cameroon Submarine Cable System (NCSCS) comes ashore, how much of their submarine diversity this cable represents, and what our measurements into them show.
| Country | Dependence on this cable | Other submarine cables | What the measurements show |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cameroon resilience index: 58 · moderate |
1 of 5 cables (20% of submarine diversity) | Ceiba-2, SAT-3/WASC, South Atlantic Inter Link (SAIL) +1 more | no measurement today; median 212 ms over 30 days (20 routes) |
| Nigeria resilience index: 67 · moderate |
1 of 8 cables (13% of submarine diversity) | 2Africa, Africa Coast to Europe (ACE), Equiano +4 more | median 141 ms today vs 176 ms over 30 days (84 routes) - faster |
Dependence is structural (share of the country's submarine cables), not a traffic share: real traffic distribution across cables is not public.
Path analysis
Traffic changed route and the original path stopped responding. This is the pattern a real cable break produces.
Cross-probe verdict. Our own cross-check concluded this was an operator reroute, not a cable fault. We publish it anyway, labelled as such.
Timeline
- Alert 2026041601: critical - ratio 5.77x
- Alert #78 improving: 1/3 consecutive OK
- Alert #78 improving: 2/3 consecutive OK
- Alert #78 resolved: RTT 20.61ms (baseline 49.89ms), 3 consecutive OK
Detection method
Latency is sampled continuously from our probe network. An alert opens when round-trip time to a monitored endpoint holds above its rolling baseline, and closes automatically once it returns. Full method is described on the methodology page.