Vietnamese internet users will be able to access FASTER, the fastest undersea optical cable in the world, by the end of this year, according to Mr. Dang Tung Son, Deputy General Director of CMC Telecom.

“CMC Telecom is working with Global Transit to change the international bandwidth of CMC Telecom to FASTER,” he added.

Negotiations are expected to be completed shortly and by the end of this year CMC Telecom will provide the new service.

FASTER has a bandwidth of 60 terabytes per second, 10 million times faster than normal cable transmission.

The undersea cable stretches for 9,000 km, connecting Japan and the west coast of North America and is the first undersea cable across the Pacific Ocean.

It was built by Google and five Asian telecommunications providers: Global Transit (Malaysia), China Mobile International, China Telecom Global, KDDI (Japan), and SingTel (Singapore).

Mr. Urs Hölzle, Senior Vice President for Technical Infrastructure at Google, said that FASTER will help Asian users have faster and more stable internet.

There are about 200 undersea optical cable systems around the world, transmitting about 95 per cent of global internet traffic.

Vietnam has five main international cable connections, including IA, AAG, APG, SMW3, and AAE1.

Between 30 and 40 per cent of is internet traffic is transmitted via AAG, an undersea cable laid in 2009 connecting Southeast Asia with US cable systems around Guam and Hawaii.

AAG needs regular maintenance, however. When there is a break down or shutdown it can take two or three weeks to repair, during which time transmission falls to a snail’s pace.

Domestic internet providers are therefore looking to reduce their dependence on AAG.

Global Transit, a subsidiary of TIME dotCom, which is the second largest telecommunications supplier in Malaysia, was involved in laying the $300 million FASTER undersea optical cable. In 2015 it invested $12 million in CMC Telecom, making CMC the first Vietnamese telecommunications company to have an international strategic investor. Its holding now stands at 45 per cent.

Founded in 1996, TIME is a data-centric telecommunications and solutions provider with a business reach across Asia Pacific.

It is a public company listed on the Main Market of Bursa Malaysia since 2001 and has a current market capitalization of approximately $1 billion.

Over the last five years it has invested over $200 million in undersea optical cable infrastructure to secure high-quality international internet traffic.

CMC Telecom is a member company of the CMC Corporation. After nearly seven years of development it currently stands among the Top 4 telecom companies in Vietnam.

It was the first provider to apply GPON technology in the country and has 100 per cent fiber optic cable infrastructure.