Will Vietnam ever take its internet seriously?

This week, and not for the first time, one of Vietnam’s major internet cable was cut by accident. That’s in a country with only five internet cables and over 93 million people.

By contrast, Singapore, a country of just over five million people, has 21 internet sea cables connecting it to the world. This is ridiculous. This is at least the third time that an internet cable has been cut in Vietnam. Last time, it caused the internet to slow down to a near halt for an entire week before returning to normal.

It’s no doubt that Vietnam’s internet cable being cut causes millions of dollars in losses in productivity for Vietnamese businesses across the country. This is especially impactful for companies that depend on a strong internet line to keep in touch with business partners abroad. But it also impacts everybody in Vietnam with an internet connection. In other words, everybody’s counting minutes while their Youtube videos load.

See: The state of 4G in Southeast Asia

But the central issue here is what companies like VNPT, the second biggest telco in Vietnam that manages the AAG cable, are doing about it? For a country about to enter the Trans-Pacific Partnership that is desperate for foreign direct investment and eager to be seen as a technology hub, basic needs like internet need to be addressed. VNPT is a major corporation with US$5.5 billion of revenue in 2013. It is one of Vietnam’s most important technology-related companies, but it can’t even keep its cables from being cut, or at least develop contracts to build more. If Vietnam can’t get basic things like internet together, how can it be taken seriously?

And you can forget about 4G. That won’t be coming to Vietnam until 2015, at the earliest.