SE Asia undersea cables got cut; slower internet ensues

Experiencing slower internet lately? You’re not alone: Several undersea cables have been cut in the wake of the recent typhoons in the region, leaving most ISPs in the country with slower connections.

Reports from several SouthEast Asian news sources have mentioned that the region’s Asia-American Gateway (AAG), TGA-Intra Asia (TGA-IA) and SEA-ME-WE3 (SMW3) cables all have suffered damages during the past weeks. AAG had been damaged as it was ruptured in two locations: 66 kilometers (41 miles) and 85 kilometers from its Hong Kong station. Meanwhile, TGA-IA cable’s damage was seen by experts at around 54 kilometers from the same island.

As such, all local ISPs and even those from other service providers in the SouthEast Asia have experienced slowdowns caused by the ruptures. Local internet service provider Cheetah Mobile who mainly services in the Rizal area has posted this message to their users, as captured by one of the redditors in r/Philippines.

To all our Cheetah Broadband subscribers:

Due to the recent typhoons that hit Hong Kong, please be advised that the submarine fiber optic cable links of our international gateway were damaged. The slowdown in our Internet connection is not only being experienced by us but by all ISPs in the Philippines and this will only improve until the fiber cut is resolved. Multiple fault points have been detected and ALL our providers have initiated their repair process. Estimated repair time is dependent on the availability of submarine cable ships and weather conditions. To date, our providers have not given an exact lead time to complete the repair as they try their best to resolve the issue.

Converge has been constantly updating its subscribers with the developments on the undersea cable cuts:

Update: Just right after we published this story, PLDT has also released a statement regarding the situation:

Globe Telecom has also issued their statement regarding the incident:

Globe Telecom takes its internet routing responsibilities seriously, and over the years have invested significant amounts of capital in a variety of subsea cable systems, including the recent SEA-US system, to ensure diversity. Globe has successfully rerouted its data traffic that goes through the affected cable systems, to its other subsea cable capacity routes. In so doing, the multiple subsea cuts had no adverse impact to our enterprise clients and mobile and broadband customers.

Our technical teams are closely monitoring the network to ensure voice, SMS and data services are operating at normal levels.

– Yoly Crisanto, Senior Vice President for Corporate Communication, Globe Telecom

Repairs for the cables may take up mid-October, according to experts. The AAG is one of SouthEast Asia’s primary cables and connects the region to the mainland US via the Pacific Ocean via Guam, and Hawaii with a 20,000-kilometer undersea cable in which PLDT has also invested into. Several sites have offloaded IP routing into other servers to alleviate the situation.

P.S. For those asking, here’s one way to fix your slow internet due to this issue.

Sources: VN Express, ZDNET

16 Comments

Stephen Pascua says:

7 years ago

Update:
Converge also post a statement regarding the recent situation:

“Update as of September 1, 2017, 9 AM:

Dear Customers,

Our international backbone providers are still finalizing the estimated time to repair the submarine cable cuts. It usually takes 4-6 weeks to fix issues of such nature. Restoration is still dependent on weather conditions, availability of cable ships and permits.

Consistent to our brand promise of providing you a better experience, we have activated several international links to mitigate latency and congestion problems. This is just a temporary solution to lessen the outage’s impact to our customers. Thank you for bearing with us.

Should you have other concerns, please do not hesitate to send us a private message.

Converge ICT Solutions Inc.”

Source:
https://facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1788245224536445&id=529552250405755
- Reply
ocommon says:

7 years ago

Pero kahit naman walang problema ang undersea cables, mabagal pa rin internet natin dito sa pinas hehe..
- Reply
Get_RECCT says:

7 years ago

Nakakapagtaka sa PLDT ay bakit hindi nila inupgrade yung “backup links” nila. I mean overloaded na yung link nila sa Singapore due to facebook getting rerouted to SG. Pati nga twitter na nasa Japan yung servers, affected e. Nung tiningnan ko yung PeeringDB entry ng PLDT, Wow 10Gbps lang link sa JPNAP at sa SGIX.. Kaya naman pala congested.
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Jude says:

7 years ago

huh? bumagal ba? Dati ng mabagal internet natin kaya hindi ko napansing mas mabagal ngayon. hehehe…
- Reply
Sam says:

7 years ago

It is time time to shift the internet connection through QUANTUM LASER via Satelite..
- Reply
Antybyrus says:

7 years ago

hindi napagtataka kung bumagagl kasi dati pa magagal na eh,,, mas mgtataka tyo kung bumislis bigla.
- Reply
Stephen Pascua says:

7 years ago

Update:
Globe Telecom also post a statement regarding the recent situation:
“PUBLIC ADVISORY

Globe takes its internet routing responsibilities seriously, and over the years have invested significant amounts of capital in a variety of subsea cable systems, including the recent SEA-US system, to ensure diversity. Globe has successfully rerouted its data traffic that goes through the affected cable systems, to its other subsea cable capacity routes. In so doing, the multiple subsea cuts had no adverse impact to our enterprise clients and mobile and broadband customers. Our technical teams are closely monitoring the network to ensure voice, text and data services are operating at normal levels.”

Source:
https://facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1015527*****39748&id=30433734747
- Reply
namolul says:

7 years ago

may mablis nmng internet sa pinas! need mo lng magbayad tlga.. d pwde magng choosy pag wlang pambayad!
- Reply
Gene Virtudes says:

7 years ago

Ang SOLUTION NG PLDT: -I-upgrade NATIN yung ATING unit. Itong unit na ginagamit ko since 2006, nagging SOOOOOOBRANG BAGAL na. Gusto ko na ngang bumili na lang nung isinasalpak na lang sa pc . YUN PALA, ang dahilan at hindi ang unit ko kundi yung SERVER. Buti na lang ‘di ako NAGPA-GOYO.
- Reply

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