HÀ NỘI — The Asia-Pacific Gateway (APG) international undersea cable broke down at 23:50 on April 23, disrupting Internet connections from Việt Nam to other countries, according to the Việt Nam Posts and Telecommunications (VNPT).

The breakdown is blamed on problems in the cable’s branch to the Chongming/APG/China landing station near China. This is the third time this year the cable system has suffered the problem.

VNPT, one of the country’s largest Internet service providers, said to address the situation, it has re-directed the Internet traffic to other cable systems and been working with foreign partners to ensure the quality of Internet services so customers would not be severely affected due to the problem.

The cable’s repair is expected to finish within three weeks. In 2018, the APG experienced the first rupture on January 6, caused by the expansion of Changi Airport in Singapore. The second time was on February 27, at a location about 125 km away from Hong Kong.

Initiated in 2009, the APG is a partnership between Chunghwa Telecom (Taiwan), China Telecom (China), China Unicom (China), KT Corporation (RoK), NTT Communications (Japan), PLDT (the Philippines), Telekom Malaysia (Malaysia) and VNPT (Việt Nam).

The 10,400 km-long APG boasts a capacity of 54Tbps, the highest of any network in Asia, connecting eight countries and territories in the Asia-Pacific region – China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, Japan, the Republic of Korea, and Việt Nam. It was funded by VNPT, Viettel, FPT and CMC Telecom.

The cable system was put into operation at the end of 2016, aiming to reduce Việt Nam dependence on the Asia-America Gateway (AAG), which broke down several times last year. — VNS