People check their phones in a rural township in Bắc Giang Province. — VNA/VNS Photo for illustration

HÀ NỘI — The Asia Pacific Gateway (APG) undersea cable, which connects nine countries and territories in the region, is facing problems with its S3 branch, about 427km from China.

The fault was detected at 4pm on July 26, the Internet Service Provider (ISP) said. It is unclear how long it will take for the cable to be fixed.

Last year, the country’s undersea internet cable was disrupted four times. This year there have been two disruptions, with the first in April lasting 10 days.

The APG cable, officially launched in December 2016, can provide bandwidths of up to 54 tbps (terabits per second). It runs 10,400km under the Pacific Ocean, linking Japan with mainland China, Hong Kong (China), Taiwan (China), Malaysia, Singapore, the Republic of Korea, Thailand, and Việt Nam.

The cable has the investment participation of Vietnamese telecommunication companies like the State-run Vietnam Telecommunications Group, the military-run Viettel, and two private groups, FPT Telecom and CMC Telecom.

Việt Nam has among the highest internet usage and development speed in the world.

As of January 2021, out of its population of over 96 million people, the number of internet users reached approximately 69 million, according to a survey by German data portal Statista. — VNS