Vietnam’s largest submarine cable segment goes on stream

By Luu Quy April 16, 2025 | 01:43 am PT

Vietnam has commissioned its segment of the Asia Direct Cable, its largest submarine internet connection so far, with a landing station in the central province of Binh Dinh.

Viettel Networks, a subsidiary of military-run telecom giant Viettel, announced on April 16 that the Vietnam-bound portion of the cable is now active.

The main ADC system was laid in December 2024. The segment linking to Vietnam has a capacity of 50 Tbps, or 125% of the country’s previous total available bandwidth.

Earlier international traffic used to rely on five other cables: SMW-3, IA, AAG, APG, and AAE-1. The 9,800-kilometer ADC links seven countries and territories, including key hubs Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan.

Built with eight fiber pairs and employing dense wavelength division multiplexing technology, it is designed to handle more than 160 Tbps of traffic.

Map of the Asia Direct Cable (ADC) submarine cable system. Photo courtesy of Viettel Networks

Backed by a US$290 million investment, it is a joint effort between nine major telecom firms: Viettel (Vietnam), SoftBank (Japan), China Telecom Global, China Telecom Corporation, China Unicom, Singtel (Singapore), TATA Communications (India), National Telecom (Thailand), and PLDT (Philippines).

Viettel owns the entire Vietnam segment, including the landing station in Quy Nhon and part of the international trunk. Viettel Networks will operate it.

A company official said an initial portion of the capacity has been activated to boost Vietnam’s international internet connectivity, improve user experience, and strengthen backup capacity in case of disruptions.

Vietnam has recently accelerated efforts to upgrade its digital infrastructure. The country aims to have 15 submarine cable systems in operation by 2030. Another cable, SJC-2, is also expected to become operational in the near future.