Internet speed dials down in Vietnam as yet more repair work starts on submarine cable

Internet users in Vietnam will experience a slow-down from Sunday as maintenance work starts once again on the notorious Asia America Gateway (AAG) undersea cable.

The work is scheduled for completion on Thursday, and users in Ho Chi Minh City are likely to be the most affected, Thanh Nien newspaper cited major internet supplier VNPT as saying on Saturday.

VNPT, which uses the AAG cable along with FPT Telecom, Viettel and SPT, said it will make the best of other cables to make up for the situation.

Connected in November 2009, the $560-million AAG with a capacity of 2 terabits/second accounts for more than 60 percent of the country’s international internet traffic.

With a length of over 20,000 kilometers (12,420 miles), the cable connects Southeast Asia and the U.S., passing through Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Brunei, Hong Kong and the Philippines.

Vietnam curently has six submarine cable systems, as well as a 120 gigabit/second channel that runs overland through China.

Around 60 percent of the country’s population of nearly 92 million is online.