The internet downtime experienced across Nigeria and other West and East African countries is due to damage caused by an undersea cable cut.

However, many people do not understand how damage to undersea internet cables could affect their internet speed and cause disruptions in commercial services.

A Nigerian man, who is knowledgeable about the workings of internet data cables laid under the sea, has offered a simple explanation.

The man, Hire Oghenekaro, explained that without undersea cables, connecting billions of people over the World Wide Web would not be possible.

He wrote: "Think about it this way. If I have a Word document on my computer, and you connect your computer to mine using an Ethernet cable. You'll be able to see "Karo's computer" on yours, and open my folders to open that Word document that's on my computer.

"No wonder for everyone to be truly connected, all over the world, between continents and countries, we need to actually use cables. Fibre Optics cables. The whole world is connected with many cables running under the sea is how we have the world wide web... of cables.

"So when you type in a URL and it doesn't open, it's because that server has been disconnected, cos it is in another country, and the cable connecting us together, has been damaged. So my browser, can't find the file." Why is Google loading despite cable cut? The man said servers such as Google are loading fast because they are hosted locally, but websites hosted on servers in other locations would be slow due to the undersea cable cuts. He added:

"But Google is going? Well, while every server across the Atlantic might have been disconnected. Servers within the country are actually still connected. So any websites hosted locally on local servers should actually still open up."

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