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While close to normal internet speeds were restored, yesterday, affected users say more redundancy is required.

The two-day internet slowdown, which began on Wednesday and particularly affected businesses dependent on internet access, was the result of a severed undersea internet cable that links Bhutan to a point of presence in the United Kingdom.  It was one of two links that connects Bhutan to the internet.  The other is to Hong Kong.

Bhutan ICT and training association president, Karma Dhendup, pointed out that the effects of disrupted links could be minimised with the establishment of a third link to the internet, which the government is pursuing, but only in the 11th five year plan.

However, enough bandwidth has to be purchased so that, if one link is cut, the other two links can adequately carry all the traffic Bhutan generates, he pointed out.

Tashi InfoComm general manager for network operations, Ganga R Sharma, pointed out that problems due to major cable cuts cannot be avoided. “While having IP transit service from providers utilising different submarine cables could ease the impact, we can’t have 100 percent redundancy, and also have economical rates at the same time,” he said. “So it wouldn’t be possible for ISPs to build 100 percent redundancy without increased end user costs, moreover such major cable cuts are rare events.”

Karma Dhendup suggested that marketing experts be utilised by ISPs to explore bulk bandwidth purchases with service providers abroad, that could possibly even lower costs for internet users in Bhutan.

The owner of a local online webhosting firm, Bhutan Hosting, said that he would recommend local ISPs to have redundancy that can handle such disruptions.  He said that local ISPs should have been able to re-route traffic via Bhutan Telecom’s second link to Hong Kong.

He also said that local clients would be willing to bear the costs of higher international bandwidth, if it meant adequate redundancy and constant internet access is established.

The current international bandwidth for Druknet is 1.1Gbps.  The ISP plans to increase it to 5Gbps by year end.

The ISP also informed its customers through its website that a re-route of traffic had been archived by 10PM Thursday.  But it also pointed out that slow connectivity might still be experienced by users, as the alternate link is not the same capacity as the original link.  It is also pointed out that the original capacity will be restored only once the undersea cable is repaired.

Source: Kuensel Newspaper

30 March 2013 – SEACOM, the company that owns the submarine fibre optic cable that links to London via Egypt said they have restored to the full capacity. It affected internet speed with submarine cable cut by 3 drivers in Egypt which the Egypt police forces said they have arrested.

Since 27th March, 2013, the internet speed in Bhutan too deteriorated. Only on 29th, Bhutan Telecom, the country’s ISP said they have partially re-routed the traffic via other gateway, which didn’t have full capacity as the affected gateway.

By 30 March 2013, SEACOM posted updates on their website that the traffic via the affected cable have been fully restored to the original capacity. 

“SEACOM is pleased to have been able to restore all services for our customers. We apologise again for the impact these multiple cable cuts have caused over the past 8 days. The work done by the SEACOM team has been outstanding. They have worked around the clock with our global partners to achieve a massive manual restoration task at a time of much disruption in regional cable systems” said Mark Simpson, SEACOM CEO.