If accessing our website today seems slower than normal, or your internet connectivity upload and download speeds are slower than normal, its because the Vietnamese connections for the Asia-America Gateway (AAG) undersea cable has been broken, again.
The Vietnam Plus reports that operator AAG has confirmed the breakage occurred on Friday, April 03 in the Vietnamese section of the cable which slowed the Internet to Vietnam and International. Coronavirus quarantining has slowed Internet speeds in some cities as more and more workers and students head home to avoid spreading the novel coronavirus.
Vietnam currently has six submarine cable systems, as well as a 120 gigabit channel that runs overland through China. The undersea cables have had a very high risk of rupture and been under frequent repair, affecting all service providers in Vietnam.
A map of the Asia America Gateway (AAG) underseas internet cable network
The AAE-1 is a 25,000 km submarine communications cable system running from Southeast Asia to Europe across Egypt, connecting Hong Kong, Vietnam and other parts of Asia.
The 6,800 km (4,225 miles) IA cable was installed in November 2009, connecting Vietnam, Singapore, the Philippines, Hong Kong, and Japan.
Vietnam’s average broadband speed is 10 times slower than Singapore’s 70.86 Mbps, a third of Malaysia’s 23.86 Mbps and half that of Thailand’s (18.21 Mbps).
Around 64 million people in Vietnam, or over half the population, are online.