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Culture & Society: Vietnam Deeply Concerned About Increasing Undersea Cable Thefts
[May 31, 2007]

Culture & Society: Vietnam Deeply Concerned About Increasing Undersea Cable Thefts


(Vietnam News Briefs Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) from the VIETNAM NEWS BRIEFS, May 31, 2007 Vietnam is deeply concerned over the continuing increase of undersea optic fibre cable theft by southern fishermen, said Deputy Post and Telecom Minister Le Nam Thang at a Hanoi press briefing May 30



The most serious theft is putting the Southeast Asian country under threats of disruption from outside world despite recent instructions of Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Sinh Hung and relevant ministries, state media said

Vietnam's international communication system is being seriously threatened by the theft of cables worth $6 million from one of two undersea lines which provide some 89% of the country's telecommunications bandwidth, including internet service, the deputy minister said


Vietnamese internet users will continue to suffer from slower service in upcoming time, since it will take at least three months to reinstall 98 kilometers of cable on the TVH line. Pham Hong Hai, director of the ministry's Post and Telecom Department said besides the two communication cable lines of TVH and SMW3 linking Vietnam and the world, there are six other undersea cable lines of foreign nations on Vietnam's sea floor. Lately, Singtel of Singapore stated the APCN undersea cable was cut for 32 kilometers, suspected to be stolen in Vietnamese territorial waters. At the press conference, deputy minister Thang said the country's defense ministry signed a contract last August with several companies to salvage undersea copper cables left over from the former government of South Vietnam, which fell to northern communist forces in 1975. For that reason, local fishermen mistakenly salvaged optical cables, which in fact are cheap if sold for scrap. (Liberated Saigon May 31 p9) Copyright 2007 Vietnam News Briefs

Copyright 2007 Toan Viet Ltd, Source: The Financial Times Limited

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