Just in time for the upcoming National Day weekend!
According to VietnamNet, at 2:35pm last Thursday, August 23, a section of the Asia-America Gateway (AAG) submarine internet cable malfunctioned, causing intermittent disruption to Vietnam’s internet network. The news source added that the faulty point is located about 250 kilometers off the coast of Vung Tau in the middle of the East Sea.
Despite frequent breakages, the AAG remains a major cable that is used by all local internet service providers, including VNPT, FPT and Viettel. Therefore, internet users in the country may encounter some trouble accessing international websites, as the breakage is at a segment connecting Vietnam with Singapore and Hong Kong.
A VNPT representative told VietnamNet in an interview that the company has implemented an alternative plan to divert the bulk of its signal to other cables, so the internet lag is minimal.
At this point, internet users in Vietnam have gotten used to frequent AAG breakages. This year, the finicky cable has malfunctioned four times: on January 6, May 22, June 16 and, now, August 23. Before last week’s breakage, Vietnam had only been enjoying normal internet from July 29, when the June 16 outage was completely fixed. Last year, the cable went down a record-breaking five times.
