Related Post
Khartoum- With the interruption and fluctuation of communication services in Sudan since the war that broke out last April, Amna Musa resorts to paper letters via travel buses and deportation offices, to check on her family in Nyala Capital of South Darfur.
Amna was not an exception. Journalist Issa Dafallah told Al Jazeera Net, “While I was in Nyala, most of the messages between journalists were to convey news in handwriting. I used to ask about the progress of military operations and the health situation, and the paper messages provided me with accurate information and details that were absent from the media.
The war last April led to a noticeable decline in the quality of services and network coverage, and the businesses of companies were severely damaged.
Three companies operate in Sudan to provide mobile phone services: Zain (one of the Kuwaiti investments in Sudan), MTN and Sudani, in addition to two companies: Canar, which provides Internet services, and Sudatel.
The first week of the war witnessed the withdrawal of 3 of the telecommunications networks operating in Sudan from service, which affected the ability to communicate among subscribers, whose number is estimated at 35 million subscribers.
A number of Sudanese suffer from the difficulty of communicating with their families stuck in areas of clashes, and some of them resort to traveling by animal or on foot for a period of not less than two hours to communicate, and paper letters have remained a means of conveying family news between cities in the region. Darfur In light of the complete interruption of telecommunications companies in some cities of the region.
The interruption and fluctuation of communication services also affected a number of sectors, such as the banking and media sectors.
Dear subscribers,
Due to some technical malfunctions that led to a malfunction in the operating system, some operational services on the network have stopped, and we are working to fix them as soon as possible.
Thank you for your kind understanding and patience.
Your communication is always our priority pic.twitter.com/3Hf6X5t8c0
— SUDANI (@Sudani_sd) December 15, 2023
Damage and losses
Mobile phone users relied on the Zain communications network, which continued to operate alone after Sudani, MTN, Canar, and Sudatel left the internet service in Sudan.
A source in the telecommunications sector told Al Jazeera Net, “This led to placing Zain’s technical capabilities under great pressure, due to the influx of thousands to benefit from the company’s services.”
The sabotage and looting operations that included the companies’ main warehouses led to the loss of large quantities of spare parts, leading to a decline in the quality of service in some areas.
The source said, “The difficulty of transporting maintenance teams to the stations, supplying them with fuel, and the difficulties they face in light of the fluctuation of electricity service, led to Zain losing benefit from a large proportion of the total infrastructure of its towers and their coverage, especially in the states of Khartoum and Darfur, which caused a decline in traffic.” data traffic and voice conversations,” noting that this led to a significant decline in the company’s overall income.
Banking services
According to sources who spoke to Al Jazeera Net, Sudani was the most affected company as a result of the war, as a number of its branches were damaged, especially in Khartoum District 2, and this completely affected banking applications in the first months of the war, because the banking sector is linked to the communications sector in terms of networking and services.
A source told Al Jazeera Net that the damage to the main dividers of communications networks and the damage they sustained cannot be repaired until after the war.
For his part, an engineer at Sudani Company told Al Jazeera Net, “The most affected areas in the coverage of the company’s services are the Darfur region and Khartoum State, which has decreased significantly.”
As a result of the repercussions of the 9-month-old Sudan war, companies operating in the communications and technology sector suffered a loss of their assets. Due to the sabotage and occupation of headquarters and stations, and the sabotage and looting of the main warehouses, which contain equipment, devices and spare parts to increase network capacities.
The Al Jazeera Net source explained that these losses mean that the projects to increase capacity that Zain and Sudani had begun had been halted due to war losses.
While Zain holds 50% of the mobile phone market share in Sudan, MTN, a South African investment, holds 26%, and Sudatel, through its operator Sudani, holds 24%.
The most affected sectors
A communications engineer – who requested to remain anonymous – said that the communications sector is one of the sectors most affected by the war in Sudan.
He added in his speech to Al Jazeera Net that for the states of Sudan, the main problem was the large displacement movement from Khartoum state to the rest of the states of Sudan, so the population density became disproportionate to the infrastructure of most states, indicating that the initial solution was to expand most of the state networks to accommodate the large population density, and it is still Work is underway to try to improve network coverage (calls – Internet).
Regarding the rate of decrease in the coverage of telecom companies’ services as a result of the war, the telecommunications engineer said, “Coverage exists in most states of Sudan, even in areas of direct conflict, but the quality of calls and the Internet has been affected by a large degree that is very difficult to measure.” He explained that the quality of calls and Internet was 8 out of 10 before. After the war, the displacement movement may be less than 4 out of 10.
Telecommunications network services (Sudanese – MTN – Zain) stopped in the city of El Fasher for the second week in a row, during which the city experienced complete isolation from communication with the rest of the cities of Sudan and the world.
Sudani and MTN services have stopped since December 14, while Zain services have stopped on Wednesday, December 20… pic.twitter.com/qQSFp1k8gm
– Hashtag Sudan 🇸🇩 (@hash_sudan) December 27, 2023
Disruption of basic services
For his part, economic expert Omar Mahjoub Al-Hussein said, “Sudan’s slide into armed conflict since April 15 has led to the disruption of basic services, including telecommunications.”
At a time when most Internet measurement tools did not indicate a total outage, Omar Mahjoub told Al Jazeera Net, “Cloudflare, which evaluates the performance and speed of websites, confirmed a decline in Internet traffic in Sudan since last April 15, and did not achieve recovery.” Telecommunications companies’ services in enabling access to them.
According to Netblocks (an Internet measurement organization), Canar Communications’ services collapsed amid the conflict.
Omar Mahjoub notes that the weak Internet penetration rate in Sudan – which amounts to 28.4% – reduces the economic cost of service interruptions.
