Thai telecom operators and some of their Thai corporate customers doing business in Cambodia are suffering from telecom and broadband network disconnections between the two countries as border tensions persist.
The state enterprise National Telecom (NT) said on Friday two routes of its cable network running from Thailand to Cambodia were disconnected, affecting broadband internet service to its Thai corporate customers in the neighbouring country.
According to NT president Col Sanphachai Huvanandana, reports of spotty broadband service in Cambodia on Friday morning prompted technicians to investigate. They found that the cable networks running from Aranyaprathet and Koh Kut to Cambodia were disconnected.
“The disruption of the broadband internet signal on both routes affected our Thai customers in Cambodia,” he said, adding it is too early to evaluate the damage.
According to the Khmer Times, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet said the country had ceased purchasing internet bandwidth from Thailand, following reports of threats made by extremist groups in Thailand calling for a halt of electricity and internet services to Cambodia.
An executive at a major Thai mobile operator who requested anonymity said the customers of large mobile operators have also been affected.
The Thai operators have an international private leased circuit (IPLC) link with their Cambodian counterparts.
The disconnection of this link by Cambodian telecom operators has disrupted Thai operators’ services to their customers in Cambodia, said the source.
The disconnection also affected Thai telecom operators’ customers in other countries, as Thai operators provide services to these countries via the IPLC link with Cambodia.
“It’s too early to evaluate the damage. Our company is monitoring the situation daily, but we hope the problem will be resolved soon,” the executive said.
A source from an internet service provider who requested anonymity said that over the past 2-3 weeks, as border tensions escalated, multiple cyberattacks were launched on Thai state agencies, allegedly from Cambodia.
AVM Amorn Chomchoey, secretary-general of the National Cyber Security Agency (NCSA), said the agency had detected suspicious traffic from Cambodia to Thailand.
He said hacktivists have attempted cyberattacks, including defacing government websites and launching distributed denial of service attacks.
The NCSA estimates the success rate of such attacks at 3%.