Two international submarine optical cables have problems

On the afternoon of December 3, a representative of an Internet service provider - ISP in Vietnam said that from 1:00 p.m. on November 29, the APG international submarine cable line had a fault on branch S8 near Thailand, causing disruption to all international Internet connections on the line.

“At present, the cause of the new incident on the APG submarine cable has not been determined and there is no expected plan for when the error will be fixed,” the ISP representative added.

Meanwhile, another international submarine cable line, AAE-1, is also experiencing problems and has not yet fully restored connection capacity on the line.

Specifically, in May, the AAE-1 route had errors on two branches: S1H3 between the landing station in Cambodia and Vietnam and S1H5 connecting to Singapore.

The problem on branch S1H3 was then fixed by the end of September; however, for various reasons, the power leakage on branch S1H5 has had its repair plan postponed more than three times.

The latest schedule announced by Vietnamese network operators is expected to fully restore connection capacity on the AAE-1 route on December 5.

Thus, currently 2/5 of the sea cable lines that account for the majority of Internet connection capacity from Vietnam to international destinations are having problems.

According to an expert, the level of influence of ISPs in Vietnam will not be the same, depending on the capacity of the two APG and AAE-1 lines they use.

The submarine cable lines that Vietnam is using have an average of 15 incidents each year. Before 2022, the repair time for submarine cables lasted from 1 to 2 months per incident. Since 2022, the time to fix submarine cable incidents has been longer.

To ensure global communications and data exchange, in 2025, Vietnam plans to put at least 2 new submarine cable lines into operation, and plans to add at least 8 submarine cable lines by 2030, increasing the total design capacity to meet the minimum "1+2" ​​backup requirement.

“This ensures the sustainability and safety of international telecommunications infrastructure, ensures uninterrupted connections, and enhances international bandwidth capacity,” emphasized a representative of the Telecommunications Department.