Asia-Middle East-Western Europe (SMW-3) submarine cable troubles are expected to be fixed between December 21-26, 2017 instead of December 10 as planned, according to a representative from the Vietnam Post and Telecommunication Group (VNPT).

Route of SMW-3 submarine cable. (Photo: FPT)

After the repair of the SMW-3 finishes, the Asia-America-Gateway (AAG)’s problems will be dealt with, VNPT said.

At 5:10am of December 10, the SMW-3 crashed for the second time in 2017 due to a problem in the cable section near the Chinese waters. As the trouble shooting plan was postponed three times, connection lost has lasted for two months.

Meanwhile, the international AAG cable was broken for the fifth time at 9:15am of November 7 due to shun fault between landing stations VTU and BU4, which occurred about 35.89km from VTU station. VNPT’s foreign partners promised to fix the issue from December 14-18, but the work will be push back about one week.

The AAG cable is 20,000km long with designed capacity of 2 Terabit/second, directly connecting Southeast Asia and the US. It has been operational since November 2009. A 314km section crossing Vietnam has countered troubles five times in 2017.

The SMW-3 cable was installed by France Telecom and China Telecom, and managed by SingTel. Operated from September 1999, the cable links Vietnam and 39 countries. In Vietnam, it lands in Da Nang.-VNA