Internet remains sluggish in Vietnam as undersea cable repair delayed

By Luu Quy June 2, 2020 | 05:54 pm PT

People surf Internet on their phones in a park in Hanoi in 2018. Photo by Shutterstock/Andy Tran.

Repair of the disaster-prone AAG undersea cable will take an extra four days to complete, so Vietnamese internet users will continue experiencing sluggish speeds.

The operator of the Asia America Gateway (AAG) cable has notified local service providers that the repairs would be completed this Saturday (June 6), instead of Tuesday as originally planned.

The cable had suffered a disruption on May 14.

They said the reason for the delay that was that technicians had found a new rupture with the undersea cable, said a local internet service provider.

Earlier, many Vietnamese internet users had complained about sluggish internet speed as the AAG cable connecting Vietnam and Hong Kong experienced a technical problem on a branch around 107 kilometers off the beach town of Vung Tau in southern Vietnam.

Then, the cable operator said repair work on the faulty section began May 28 and was set to finish on June 2.

The Asia Pacific Gateway (APG) undersea cable that links Vietnam with its neighbors in the Asia-Pacific region also broke down on May 24, worsening internet speed in Vietnam. No information has been released on repairs for this cable. It runs for around 10,400 km, with connection points in mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

Vietnam has six submarine cable systems and a 120 gigabit channel that runs overland through China.

Connected in November 2009, the $560-million AAG handles more than 60 percent of the country’s international Internet traffic. The cable runs more than 20,000 kilometers (12,420 miles), connecting Southeast Asia with the U.S., passing through Brunei, Hong Kong, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

But it has experienced frequent ruptures and repairs, affecting services in Vietnam, where more than 64 percent of the population is online.

The APG cable, officially launched in December 2016, is capable of providing bandwidths of up to 54 Tbps (Terabit per second). It runs for around 10,400 km, with connection points in mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.