The 6,800 km IA cable has been operating since November 2009, connecting Singapore, Vietnam, the Philippines, Hong Kong and Japan.

According to Internet service providers (ISP), the error on the Asia America Gateway (AAG) cable will be fixed from February 25 to March 13 while the Asia Pacific Gateway (APG) will be fixed on February 24.

Mr. Vu The Binh, CEO of NetNam, Vice President and General Secretary of the Vietnam Internet Association (VIA), told VietNamNet that as three submarine cables AAG, APG and IA have problems at the same time, the quality of Internet services in Vietnam will be affected. Some users may experience slower speeds than usual.

"ISPs will find a way to compensate for the lack of capacity through other channels, but it will not be as comfortable as when all three submarine cables are still in good condition," Binh said.

ISPs have sought to invest in building new cable routes while optimizing domestic Internet traffic through strengthening Caching and CDN systems.

“We all want Vietnamese Internet users to use domestic applications, but it depends on the quality and popularity of domestic applications. This is a big challenge and it takes time and joint efforts to improve,” Binh added.

"Our suggestion is that businesses and individuals should use more domestic applications, as a supplement and backup to familiar applications provided by global companies," he said.

Regarding long-term solutions to deal with frequent incidents of undersea cable routes that Vietnam is using, Binh said the internet can be considered an important digital infrastructure of the nation to serve socio-economic development. Large network operators also have plans to expand international cables to meet the growing demand for Internet services.

Binh hoped that when Vietnamese platforms and applications are at a good level, the dependence on offshore submarine cables will lessen.

“We also see global platform providers bringing infrastructure and data closer to Vietnam, setting up access points in Vietnam. This shows that both international and domestic capacity demand will increase sharply in the near future when the economy recovers after the epidemic," he said.

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