Three out of Vietnam’s five international undersea cables are currently down, according to the country’s state media. The affected cables are the Intra Asia (IA) connection to Singapore, the Asia Pacific Gateway (APG) link, and the Asia-Africa-Europe-1 (AAE-1) pipeline.
The Vietnam News Agency reported that internet users are facing significant difficulties accessing services hosted on overseas servers. These three cables are critical as they connect Vietnam to the US, Europe, and other parts of Asia, and their disruption has greatly impacted the country’s global internet connectivity.
Repairing these cables is notoriously slow due to a global shortage of repair ships and the time required to locate and fix the damage. The news agency did not provide a timeframe for the repairs.
Last year, all five of Vietnam’s submarine cables went down simultaneously for unclear reasons. The country managed to maintain most of its connectivity through terrestrial connections, highlighting the importance of diversified connectivity routes.
In response to these issues, Vietnam announced plans in February to invest in up to four additional international telecommunications cables with a data capacity of 60 Tbps by 2025. If all five of the existing cables are operational by then, Vietnam’s undersea bandwidth will nearly double to 122 Tbps.
