Thai Internet speeds have returned to normal after around two weeks of patchy and unreliable service. The Asia-America Gateway (AAG) submarine cable system near the Philippines (which links Thailand and Malaysia to the US and North Asia) has been repaired.

Thai Internet back to full speed

The fault happened several weeks ago at an unspecified undersea location near the Philippines, but according to Telekom Malaysia (TM) Bhd has since been repaired.

“This information was relayed to us by the consortium that manages and maintains the Asia-America Gateway submarine cable system (in which Telekom Malaysia is a part of)”, said Telekom Malaysia in a statement.

The problem had in fact been scheduled to have been fixed sooner, but TM announced on Monday that the completion would be postponed due to “due to challenging sea conditions and additional repairs required”.

Rough seas delay repairs

TM said earlier that “Works to restore the AAG cable system involves the concerted efforts of all consortium members, and is expected to begin on Saturday, Jan 31. In ideal conditions, the restoration work is expected to be completed on Saturday, Feb 7, subject to sea conditions, the identification of the actual location of the fault and the challenges presented working at great sea depths and pressure. During this period, Internet users may experience intermittent slow browsing and high latency while accessing international websites mainly hosted in the US, North Asia and Europe.”

Telekom Malaysia said that it had taken “proactive steps to optimise our network to reduce congestion by diverting traffic to alternative routes, thus, minimising the impact to our users”.

Did anyone notice that the Thai Internet was slower than normal? Speeds in the country have gradually crept up over the past few years, and now fibre optic connections from the likes of TOT and 3BB are now available to consumers at relatively inexpensive prices. However, while Thai Internet speeds on those super fast broadband connections are generally fairly quick, the Internet to the rest of the world still seems as patch as ever.

SOURCE: therakyatpost.com