TM: Typhoons did only minimal damage to submarine cables

PETALING JAYA: Submarine cables damaged by two strong typhoons near Hong Kong – Hato and Pakhar – will have minimal impact on Internet connection speeds in Malaysia.

“We are not seeing any significant capacity degradation as we have sufficient network capacity to cater to current demand,” Telekom Malaysia (TM) said in a statement.

Four cables were damaged: ASE (Asia SubmarineCable Express), TGAIntra Asia (TGAIA), AsiaAmerican Gateway (AAG) and SEAMEWE3 (SMW3).

ASE, also known as Cahaya Malaysia, is a 7,200km submarine cable jointly owned by a consortium run by TM, Singapore’s Starhub, Japan’s NTT and the Philippines’ PLDT.

TM is also part of the consortium that owns AAG, a 20,000km cable.

TM said it detected faults in the cables connecting Hong Kong to Japan, the Philippines, Malaysia and Singapore as well as to the United States and North Asia.

It said submarine cable faults of this nature are normal and the consortium had begun concerted efforts to rectify the problem.

However, online reports suggest it will take up to six weeks to fix because repair work is dependent on ship availability, weather conditions and permits.

“As a precaution, we have also taken steps to optimise traffic, reduce congestion and divert traffic to alternative routes to minimise the impact on our users,” it added.

TM said it will continue to monitor feedback from customers on the quality of service and undertake all necessary measures to ensure uninterrupted service.