The Gambia: Internet Connection Reportedly Went Down

On July 3, the National Assembly in Banjul, the Gambian capital, passed into law an amendment to the Information and Communication Act 2013, imposing stiffer sanctions on persons found guilty of using the internet to spread false news (Photo credit: whurleyvision)

Reports reaching Front Page International (FPI) have it that internet connection hit record low speed on Sunday, 23^rd February 2014 in The Gambia. This poor connectivity, particularly with the public service provider, Gambia Telecommunications Company (Gamtel) comes bare 5 days after the tiny West African state celebrated her 49 years of independence from Great Britain. In his annual independence message release on Monday 17^th February 2014 (independence eve), the president described the independence as a “sham”.

“I have tried without any success to connect to the internet from my tablet (referring to a mobile internet device). This is really troubling for me and I tried to call the customer care service (sic) but their numbers will not go as well,” a user told FPI.

An Internet Cafe operator in the Greater Banjul Area who preferred anonymity said: “For me I realised that the system (internet connection) is down when my customers started hissing and grumbling that my computers are “taking ages to just load a page”, which is quite abnormal.

“From time to time, we experience slow connectivity but for today it is really bad. I have never seen anything like this in the past. I hope Gamtel will look into it with all kind of seriousness,” the desperate businessman appealed.

“Since around 03:30pm (15:30gmt) I realised that I cannot make calls from my Gamcel line even though it displays full network. Any time I dial a number I cannot go through, which left me wondering,” said one Ebrima Sanneh, adding that it he has observed similar occurrence of this kind lately.

In the past there has been slow internet connection, which the telecommunications and gateway operator Gamtel attributed to “technical faults” emanating from underground fibre connection with neighbouring Senegal. Efforts to reach Gamtel ended in futile.