Viettel Group reached a deal with Singtel to jointly develop a submarine cable system directly connecting Vietnam and Singapore, adding hundreds of Tb/s to the operators’ international connectivity capacity when operational in Q2 2027.

In a joint statement, the operators noted they will build the Vietnam-Singapore (VTS) cable with a configuration of eight fibre pairs using the most advanced wavelength division multiplexing technology. Viettel will manage the main trunk landing station in Vietnam, while Singtel will manage the Singapore one. The cable also is expected to have branch landing stations in Cambodia, Thailand and Malaysia. 

Viettel, the largest operators in Vietnam with 61.8 million mobile connections at end-March, explained that in addition to providing a large amount of high-speed capacity, VTS will open “a new connection direction to the south”, enhancing the redundancy and security of its international connection infrastructure.

The project is Viettel’s seventh investment in submarine cable systems.

As part of Vietnam’s digital strategy, the Ministry of Information and Communications identified international optical cables as a critical component of the country’s digital infrastructure, suggesting the country needs to increase the total number of submarine cables to 15 systems with a total capacity of at least 334Tb/s by 2030.