Fiber optic cable problem, Vietnam's international internet speed affected

(Dan Tri) - A problem has just been discovered on the APG submarine cable, which will affect the speed of Internet connection from Vietnam to international destinations.

According to information from an Internet service provider in Vietnam, the unit managing and operating the APG (Asia- Pacific ) submarine cable line discovered an incident on the S3 cable branch, about 66km from Chongming Island (China).

The APG cable operator has not yet determined when the problem will be fixed.

APG optical cable connection diagram (Photo: APG).

This is the third time in 2025 that the APG optical cable has had a problem. The previous incidents occurred in January and July.

Internet service providers in Vietnam have redirected international Internet traffic through other fiber optic cables to minimize the impact, helping users continue to use the Internet normally.

However, this incident may affect the Internet connection speed from Vietnam to some online services with servers located in China, Hong Kong (China), Japan, etc., especially during peak hours, while domestic services or services with servers located in other countries will not be affected by the incident.

In fact, the problem of submarine fiber optic cables from Vietnam to international countries having problems has become very familiar, almost every year at least a few times, causing many inconveniences and obstacles for domestic Internet users.

The peak occurred at the end of February 2023, when all 5/5 submarine fiber optic cables connecting Vietnam to international countries simultaneously encountered problems, seriously affecting the quality of Internet services in Vietnam.

The causes of submarine fiber optic cable failures are quite diverse, but mainly because the cable is located in a location where many ships are anchored or the ships forget to pull up their anchors when moving. As a result, these anchors accidentally get caught in the fiber optic cable and break it.

Sometimes fiber optic cable problems related to power supply or maintenance by the operator… will also affect the transmission capacity of the fiber optic cable. However, these types of problems will be resolved more quickly and easily.

Network operators in Vietnam are looking for solutions to divert the exploitation of fiber optic cables on land to avoid being affected by submarine fiber optic cable breaks. However, in reality, global internet traffic and connections between continents still largely depend on submarine fiber optic cables.

There are currently 6 submarine cable lines connecting Vietnam internationally, including AAG (Asia - America); APG (Asia - Pacific ); SMW-3 (Southeast Asia - Middle East - Western Europe); IA (Inter-Asia), AAE-1 (Asia - Africa - Europe), TVH connecting Hong Kong (China) with Thailand and Vietnam.

Most recently, the ADC fiber optic cable connecting Vietnam, China, Hong Kong (China), Thailand, the Philippines, Singapore and Japan was officially put into operation on April 16. The capacity of the ADC connecting to Vietnam reached 50 Tbps, becoming the largest cable line and equal to 125% of the total international connection capacity of Vietnam before.

Source: https://dantri.com.vn/cong-nghe/tuyen-cap-quang-gap-su-co-toc-do-internet-viet-nam-di-quoc-te-bi-anh-huong-20251020154837770.htm