Submit a comment
On the morning of February 7, representatives of domestic network operators said that the NOC system (International Submarine Optical Cable Management Board) has announced a plan to repair 3 submarine optical cables in mid-March and early April 2023.
Specifically, 3 fiber optic cable lines have repair schedules including: APG (Asia Pacific Gateway), AAG (Asia, America Gateway) and IA (Intra Asia, also known as Lien A).
For the APG line, the fault on branch S6 is expected to be repaired from March 22-27, 2023. The fault on branch S9 is expected from April 5-9, 2023. The fault on the AAG line is expected to be repaired from March 30 to April 4, 2023.
The IA cable line is in the process of applying for a license and registering a repair vessel. The estimated repair time is mid-March 2023.
In addition to the problems with the three submarine cable lines mentioned above, the AAE-1 (Asia - Africa - Euro 1) line is also experiencing problems due to a source detection error at a location near the sea area of Hong Kong (China). However, the NOC system has not yet announced a repair plan. Thus, according to the plan, it will not be until the end of March 2023, or even mid-April 2023, that the quality of Vietnam's international internet can be better.
The Internet is now not only a telecommunications service, but also an important component of the economic and social infrastructure. Currently, 4/5 submarine internet cable lines, namely AAG, APG, AAE-1 and IA (Inter-Asia), are all experiencing problems at the same time, causing a clear impact on Vietnam's international internet connection.
In early February 2023, Lien A was the second submarine cable to have a problem this year. Specifically, at noon on January 28, the Lien A submarine cable (Intra Asia, abbreviated as IA submarine cable) broke at a location about 130 km from the cable's Singapore landing station. The incident caused the loss of all international internet connection capacity from Vietnam to Singapore on this cable.
With a total length of 6,800 km, the Pan-Asia submarine cable connects Singapore, Vietnam, the Philippines, Hong Kong (China) and Japan, making it an important optical cable route to transfer internet traffic from Vietnam and other Asian countries to America and Europe.
Previously, on the 30th of Tet (January 21, 2023), the AAG international submarine cable also had a problem on the S9 branch connecting to Singapore. The problem caused the loss of all internet capacity on the APG cable connecting Vietnam to Singapore and Japan. When the APG cable failed, network operators in Vietnam had to compensate about 50 - 60% of the international connection capacity on other cable lines.
Specifically, traffic is distributed through the northern mainland cable system to Hong Kong (China), and through the southwestern mainland to Singapore. These are also major internet traffic transit points in Asia-Pacific.
On December 26, 2022, the APG cable line had a problem on the S6 segment near Hong Kong (China). At the end of November 2022, the AAE-1 cable line also had a problem on two branches, S1H.1 towards Hong Kong (China) and S1H.3 towards Singapore. By January 14, 2023, the cable branch to Singapore was repaired, but the problem on the cable branch connecting to Hong Kong (China) had not been resolved.
Currently, 4/5 submarine cable lines connecting Vietnam's internet to international destinations are experiencing problems. The only submarine cable line that is operating normally is SMW-3. However, SMW-3 is an old cable line with low available capacity and does not contribute much to Vietnam's international internet connection.
Statistics from recent years show that there have been about 10 incidents on submarine fiber optic cables each year. A representative of the Vietnam Internet Association said that incidents on fiber optic cables are not rare but are also unpredictable.
Previously, when 1 or 2 cable lines had problems at the same time, Vietnamese internet service providers had a way to handle and fix the problem quite quickly by sharing internet traffic between the cable lines. However, the scenario of almost all submarine cable channels having problems is very rare. Currently, internet cable lines running on land cannot be upgraded quickly due to limitations in equipment and many other factors.
The troubleshooting of submarine cables depends on the extent of the problem, the weather at sea, the time it takes for countries to request permission to access their waters to carry out repairs, and many other factors. Therefore, the unstable internet situation, transmission speed, and international internet data download will certainly be affected in the coming weeks.
Representatives of major Vietnamese network operators (Viettel, Vinaphone) have committed to actively working with cable management units and international partners to quickly handle the issue and ensure service provision for customers.
According to Tin Tuc newspaper
