Telecommunications giant VNPT Group has installed VSTN, a land-based international Internet fiber optic cable system, to reduce Vietnam’s reliance on vulnerable undersea connections.
The 3,900-kilometer VSTN cable, which became operational on Monday, runs from the central city of Da Nang through Laos, Thailand, Malaysia, to Singapore. It is the first international cable to be fully owned and operated by a Vietnamese company.
The system utilizes dense wavelength division multiplexing technology, with each wavelength providing a minimum capacity of 300 Gigabits per second.
It has a design capacity of 4 Tbps, but can be expanded to 12 Tbps or more, and built to support high-volume data transmission for high-speed Internet, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, digital finance, and online conferencing. While there are regular disruptions to undersea cables and slow repairs, a land-based system reduces the risk of Internet outages and allows full control over its operation.
VNPT CEO Huynh Quang Liem said since 2022 the country’s undersea cable systems have averaged 10 failures per year. “At one point, four out of five international undersea cables connecting to Vietnam were damaged, severely reducing international bandwidth and causing VNPT to lose 75% of its capacity.”
Undersea cable repairs are often delayed due to external factors. “Repair times range from two to three months and as long as six months. The AAG cable once took 12 months to fix.”
Source: VN Express