Local Internet providers have said access to international services, including Youtube and Facebook, is choppy as the Asia-America Gateway (AAG) undersea fiber optic cable line is suspended for scheduled maintenance.

The ongoing maintenance, however, does not affect Internet services provided by local companies.

The maintenance takes place more than one month after the line broke in Hong Kong early August due to Typhoon Nida, and it took many days for the operator of the line to have it fixed. The system was suspended from June 22 to 26 for maintenance.

The AAG was put into use in 2009 but it has been out of service for many times for either scheduled maintenance or ruptures.

With a capacity of two terabit per second, the 20,000-kilometer AAG cable system connects Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Brunei, Hong Kong, and the Philippines in Asia and Guam, Hawaii and California of the U.S.

The system affects up to 90% of Internet users in Vietnam as all major local Internet providers Viettel, Vietnam Posts and Telecommunications Group (VNPT), FPT Telecom, and Saigon Postel Corporation (SPT) are using it.

The AAG is one of the four major undersea cable lines linking Vietnam and the world but its capacity makes up 70% of the country’s international Internet traffic.

Experts said when two new undersea cable systems AAE-1 (Asia Africa Euro 1) and APG (Asia Pacific Gateway) come online in the final months of the year, connection to international Internet services in Vietnam will be less affected when the AAG is halted.

SGT