As reported yesterday, TM customers on Unifi and Streamyx will be suffering slower internet speeds especially to sites and online services hosted in the US. They have just identified a submarine cable system as the root cause of the problem and a fix is underway. Unfortunately fixing a cable lying on the seabed isn’t easy and it will take a month before it gets a full restoration.
This time, it is a different submarine cable. The 6 fibre pair and 7,500 KM long Asia Submarine Cable Express (ASE) located off Singapore is currently identified as the culprit and it affects 2 fibre pairs of TM’s own Cahaya Malaysia. The remaining 4 pairs belong to NTT, StarHub and PLDT.
The repair will require collaborative efforts from consortium members and it is only scheduled to commence on 25th March with expected completion on 31st March. This is also subject to weather and sea conditions which may delay restoration efforts.
As a temporary fix, TM is diverting international traffic to alternative routes to minimise the impact for Malaysian users. While restoration is in progress, expect slower speeds and high latency to international sites that are hosted in the US, North Asia and Europe.
