Repairs to the problematic underwater Internet cable system that has affected Internet users in Vietnam over the last 20 days will officially finish tomorrow, but you do not have to wait until then to get rid of the snail-paced connection speed.

Vietnam’s Internet connectivity returned to normal speed at 2:20 am, May 12, local telcos confirmed to Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper the same day.

The cable section between Vietnam and Hong Kong in the America – Asia Gateway (AAG) submarine system encountered an incident on April 23, resulting in a snail-like connection speed for Internet users in the Southeast Asian country.

The incident, which was confusingly described as either a cable rupture or a leakage of power by local telecom firms, was fixed late Monday so Internet quality has been restored, Lam Quoc Cuong, director of the VNPT-I, a local Internet service provider, told Tuoi Tre.

Internet traffic is now flowing normally through the AAG system, he said.

“The cable will be buried under the seabed on Wednesday, along with many other technical tasks, which will mark the official finish of repairs,” he added.

FPT Telecom said its customers could “feel the normal Internet speed” as of Tuesday morning.

Internet subscribers of VNPT were also able to enjoy the normal speed starting this morning, according to a company representative.

VNPT said earlier this month that the incident would be repaired by May 13.

The seemingly delicate AAG cable system is infamous for repeated ruptures.

Disruptions have occurred to the system four times on different sections since 2014, with one break hitting the cable in January this year.

In every case, the Internet connection to overseas servers of all service providers in Vietnam was affected, slowing down the Internet speed of their subscribers whenever they utilized services hosted abroad.

Users of domestic services, however, were unfazed by the incidents.

Vietnam is connected to four international submarine Internet cable systems, namely the AAG, SMW3 (Southeast Asia - Middle East - Western Europe 3), TVH (Thailand-Vietnam-Hong Kong) and IA (Intra Asia).

But Internet traffic in Vietnam is greatly affected whenever the AAG cable ruptures, as the system has the largest capacity out of the four.

The AAG is a 20,000-kilometer-long submarine communications cable system, connecting Southeast Asia with the U.S. mainland across the Pacific Ocean via Guam and Hawaii.

VNPT, Viettel and FPT are reportedly participating in a trans-Asia Pacific cable system project that will connect Asia with the U.S. and is scheduled to go online in 2016.

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