2 international submarine fiber optic cables are having problems

In addition to the two land cable lines connecting to Hong Kong (China) and Singapore with a total capacity of 5 Tbps, the Internet connection from Vietnam to the international market currently goes through five international submarine fiber optic cable lines with a total capacity in use of more than 20 Tbps, a total available capacity of 34 Tbps, including: Asia America Gateway (AAG), APG (Asia Pacific Gateway), SMW3 (also known as SEA - ME - WE3), Intra Asia (IA, also known as Lien A) and Asia - Africa - Euro 1 (AAE-1).

This year, on March 15, May 23 and June 13, 3 out of 5 international submarine cable lines that Vietnamese network operators are operating experienced problems, causing service disruptions on the lines.

Specifically, the APG cable line had problems on 4 branches S1.9, S3, S8 and S9; the AAE-1 cable line had problems on 2 branches S1H3 and S1H5; S1 and S5 are 2 branches of the IA submarine cable line that had problems.

Recently, in the context of 3/5 submarine fiber optic cable lines having problems, network operators have had plans to transfer capacity to other cable lines to ensure service quality for customers. However, some users of FTTH fiber optic Internet service have experienced slow access to international lines during peak hours.

Updated information on the repair and troubleshooting of the three international submarine fiber optic cables mentioned above was recently shared by a representative of an Internet service provider - ISP in Vietnam with VietNamNet reporters on October 2.

According to the ISP representative, the IA submarine cable has now fully restored its connection capacity. The incident on the S1 and S5 branches of this submarine cable was resolved in mid-July and late September, respectively.

With the connection direction via the APG submarine cable, from the beginning of May to the end of August, the problems on the S3, S8 and S9 cable branches were fixed; currently, only the S1.9 cable branch near the landing station in Malaysia is being repaired and is expected to be completed in the first week of October.

Similar to APG, part of the international Internet connection capacity on the AAE-1 submarine cable has been restored, due to the completion of the repair of the problem on the S1H3 branch towards Hong Kong (China) on September 23. However, according to the plan, the power leakage error that occurred on the S1H5 branch of the cable line will not be repaired until October 26.

Thus, according to the progress of troubleshooting on the newly updated submarine fiber optic cables, it is expected that the entire Internet connection capacity from Vietnam to international destinations will be fully restored in October 2024.

Bringing Vietnam into the regional leader group in international fiber optic cables

Statistics from the Department of Telecommunications (Ministry of Information and Communications) show that on average, each year, Internet service providers in Vietnam have to endure about 15 submarine cable incidents, with repair time before 2022 being about 1-2 months/incident, and after 2022 being from 1-3 months per incident.

Because of that, there was a time when Vietnam experienced problems on all 5 undersea fiber optic cables in use, causing a loss of about 60% of international Internet connection capacity for nearly 2 months.

Realizing that the international submarine cable system is still an essential infrastructure that needs to be focused on for expansion in the future and based on the reality in Vietnam, on June 14, the Ministry of Information and Communications issued the "Strategy for developing Vietnam's international submarine cable system to 2030, with a vision to 2035".

With the orientation of bringing Vietnam into the leading group in the region in terms of international fiber optic cable systems, the strategy has set out a series of specific goals, including putting into operation at least 10 new submarine fiber optic cable lines with modern technology, increasing the total number of submarine fiber optic cable lines in Vietnam to at least 15 lines with a minimum capacity of 350 Tbps, about 10 times higher than the current number; having at least 2 submarine fiber optic cable lines owned by Vietnam directly connecting to Digital Hubs in the region.

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According to the strategy issued by the Ministry of Information and Communications in June 2024, state-owned enterprises will pioneer the deployment of international fiber optic cables. Illustration photo: MH

Along with that, instead of connecting to the East as it is now, Vietnam's submarine optical cable system in the next 10 years will be deployed and distributed harmoniously in all technically feasible directions such as connecting to the East Sea to the North; connecting to the East Sea to the South and connecting to the southern sea.

In an exchange with VietNamNet at the time the strategy for developing the international fiber optic cable system was issued, Vice President and General Secretary of the Vietnam Internet Association Vu The Binh highly appreciated the Ministry of Information and Communications' issuance of the strategy and commented that the strategy showed the vision, goals, objectives and a number of specific solutions for Vietnam's international fiber optic cable system in the next 5-10 years.

“The contents of the strategy are a valuable source of information for multinational companies, large domestic and regional telecommunications operators, as well as other players in the Internet ecosystem in Vietnam. And just like the highway system, it is very expensive and time-consuming to build, so having a strategy will help guide the implementation,” said a VIA representative.

According to the Telecommunications Authority, it is expected that in the first quarter of 2025, two new submarine cable lines with Vietnamese investment, SJC2 and ADC, will be put into operation. In addition, preparations for the deployment of a Vietnamese-owned submarine cable line are also underway.
Vietnam will have 10 new submarine optical cable lines, with a total capacity more than 10 times higher. Vietnam's international optical cable system development strategy aims to put into operation at least 10 new submarine optical cable lines by 2030, bringing the total number of submarine optical cable lines in Vietnam to at least 15.