Repairs To Vietnam’s Undersea Internet Cable Delayed 2 Days

It will take two days longer than expected to fix Vietnam’s branch of the Asia-America Gateway cable (AAG) due to bad weather.

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Lam Quoc Cuong, director of state-owned telecom giant VNPT International, told Thanh Nien this afternoon that repairs to the cable, which suffered a short circuit on April 23, would be pushed back to 5pm on May 12.

At the time of the malfunction, local internet providers vowed that connections to international websites would fare better than in previous incidents as they are better prepared to reroute traffic after many breaks over the years.

Since the US$560 million, 20,000km cable went into operation in 2011, it has broken in at least 7 instances, each time on the section that connects Vietnam and Hong Kong. 

Some blame sharks while others conjure up Chinese conspiracy theories, but FPT officials have previously faulted “below-standard technical design” for the regular breaks in the AAG cable.

“I must say that the AAG cable system was built to a below-standard technical design, which is the major reason behind its frequent fractures,” said Nguyen Van Khoa, general director of FPT Telecom after a break last September.

Last week, the country’s telecommunications ministry announced that it will build a new land-based cable to China to provide a more stable connection to international websites.

[Photo via Bloomberg]