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ninesnines | 3 years ago

But what are the implications of this internet cable being down? Will there be a slowing of internet? Is there an easy fix?

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toast0|3 years ago

Based on a different article[1] and the submarine cable map [2][3][4]... Asia Africa Europe 1 (AAE-1) is currently broken between Vietnam and Hong Kong, but presumable is functional from Vietnam to the rest of the cable that travels west (landings in much of southern asia and a couple points in southern Europe). Intra Asia (IA) is broken between Vietnam and Singapore, but it also lands in Hong Kong and the Philipines. SMW3 lands in a lot of places, but is reported to be obsolete.

So, it seems Vietnam no longer has a direct fiber connection to Singapore, and has reduced capacity to Hong Kong. There will likely be some slowdown as Hong Kong and Singapore are both popular locations for data centers.

There's not really an easy fix. Traffic will flow over alternate paths, but repair boats need to go out and locate the ends of the broken cables, bring them up to the surface, splice them back together, and then let them sink again.

Terrestrial cabling tends not to get damaged by ships, and is a lot easier to locate for repairs, but it's hard to run it over mountains and through forests, and you can't run a terrestrial cable from Vietnam to Singapore or the United States.

[1] https://en.vietnamplus.vn/internet-slows-as-four-out-of-five...

[2] https://www.submarinecablemap.com/submarine-cable/asia-afric...

[3] https://www.submarinecablemap.com/submarine-cable/tata-tgn-i...

[4] https://www.submarinecablemap.com/submarine-cable/seamewe-3

themoonisachees|3 years ago

How do ships damage the cable to begin with?