The government instructed a southern province Monday to intensify investigations into the theft of two undersea fiber-optic cables and apprehend the culprits. The Ba Ria Vung Tau administration allowed last year the coast guard and fishermen to salvage disused underwater cables laid before 1975 to sell as scrap.
This spawned a rush by fishermen to haul up the cables and many reportedly mistook cables in use for unused ones. Last month the province withdrew the permission and banned all kinds of cable salvage.
But officials from the Ministry of Posts and Communications, who are on a visit to the province, said since the cables had been laid 1-2 m beneath the seabed, they had been stolen rather than mistakenly severed by fishermen. The cables fetch around 7,000 dong (43 US cents) a kilogram as scrap.
Eleven kilometres of line have been stolen from the TVH line transmitting data from Vietnam to Thailand and Hong Kong, and 32 kilometres from ACPN, a cable operated by a Singaporean firm.
Only one undersea cable-the SMW3-connecting Vietnam to the outside world remains operational. If this line too is stolen or even minutely damaged, Vietnam will be mostly cut off, experts warn.
They estimate it will cost around US$2.6 million and take at least three months to repair the TVH line. A coupler to join two ends of a severed cable alone costs a staggering US$1 million.
Last Friday prime minister Nguyen Tan Dung instructed authorities concerned to step up efforts to prevent any more thefts. He said the thefts were extremely serious and directly affected socio-economic development, national security, and Vietnam's international prestige.
The PM ordered the Ministry of Defense to intensify patrolling and monitor ships, the Ministry of Public Security to investigate the thefts, and the Ministry of Communications to repair the cable as soon as possible.
In related news, firms from 10 countries including Vietnam, the US, India, the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, and Singapore, are teaming up to lay a 20,000 kilometres, US$500 million AAG cable to connect Southeast Asia, including Vietnam, with the US.
The communications ministry has instructed Vietnamese companies involved to speed up work and finish the project before its October 2008 schedule.
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