The Asia Pacific Gateway (APG) submarine cable, which connects Vietnam with many countries in the region, is again experiencing problems from 26/7.
These incidents have recently had a huge impact on the Internet usage experiences of the Vietnamese, such as significantly slow speed, congestion and even the inability to access websites with foreign servers.
Vietnam’s submarine internet cables break on average about 10 times a year, with a lifespan of about a month.
The APG cable, officially launched in December 2016, can deliver bandwidths of up to 54 Tbps (Terabit per second). It runs 10,400 kilometers (6,460 miles) under the Pacific Ocean, connecting Japan with Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, the Republic of Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam.
Vietnam is considered one of the countries with the highest internet usage and fastest development speed in the world. According to a global consumer survey by the German data portal Statista, the number of internet users in the country reached about 69 million of the population.
Sometimes undersea internet cable attacked by sharks?
Sharks sometimes mistake submarine cables for prey and chew through them
When searching for new undersea oil fields, geologists use large ships to tow several heavy cables (called streamer cables) to collect seismic data. Equipped with hydrophones that receive the returned signals initiated by a seismic source, these streamer cables are deployed approximately 16-65 feet (5-20 meters) deep, and each streamer is typically 26,247 ft (8 km) long. As you can imagine, this activity probably attracts a lot of animals to see what it’s all about. One of these animals is sharks, which are attracted to the magnetic streamer fields and tend to bite through the cables! In some parts of the world, equipment loss due to shark attacks on streamer cables is a serious problem in terms of time delays and economic loss for the operator.
This isn’t the first time sharks have caused headaches on submarine cable systems… this problem goes back to the 80’s! According to Network Worldeven google -2.4%GOOGL has had to wrap their internet cables in Kevlar-like material to prevent harmful shark bites. So why are sharks attracted to submarine data cables? It is not exactly known. Some believe that because sharks can sense electromagnetic fields through jelly-filled pores on their snouts called ampoules of Lorenzini, they may be attracted to this electrical current and mistake it for food. Alternatively, shark expert Dr. Chris Lowe of California State University for: they might just be curious about them. “If you only had a piece of plastic in the shape of a cable, chances are they would bite into that too,” said Dr. Lowe, who is in charge of the shark labin the interview at wired.
So which sharks are naughty and make trouble? Multiple types, depending on how deep the cables are. But at this depth? A culprit could be bull sharks (Carcharhinus leucas) with their stout, gray bodies and short blunt snouts. A widespread shark in tropical and warm temperate waters around the world, they are common in areas where oil companies have experienced problems with sharks attacking the streamer cables. The International Union for Conservation of Nature has rated bull sharks as Near Threatened (NT) because their occurrence in estuarine and freshwater areas makes them vulnerable to human influences.
