Africa's Only Internet Cable Repair Ship Keeps the Continent Online

The Leon Thevenin, Africa's only permanently stationed cable repair ship, maintains over 60,000 kilometers of undersea internet infrastructure from Madagascar to Ghana. The 43-year-old vessel employs a 60-person crew who perform precision repairs on fiber-optic cables that carry data for Alphabet, Meta, and Amazon -- companies that consumed 3.6 billion megabits per second of bandwidth in 2023.

Operating costs range from $70,000 to $120,000 daily, according to owner Orange Marine. The ship has experienced increased demand due to unusual underwater landslides in the Congo Canyon causing frequent cable breaks. Cable jointer Shuru Arendse and his team spend up to 48 hours on repairs that require fusing hair-thin glass fibers in conditions where a speck of dust can ruin the joint. The vessel gained Starlink connectivity last year after decades of relying on satellite phones and shared computers for crew communication. Sixty-two cable repair ships operate globally to maintain the infrastructure supporting streaming media and AI applications.

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