The New Internet Gateway

Bhutan's international connection to the Internet was, until now, via a single gateway in Phuentsholing. Today, however, all this is supposed to change, and a second international link in Gelephu will finally start operating, according to the Kuensel ("2nd International Gateway: Bhutan will have 24/7 connectivity once this link is ‘lit’').

But will this provide a true 24x7 redundancy?

Toward the end of the article, we read that

The Phuentsholing, and soon to be launched Gelephu gateway, both route through Siliguri, then the city of Mumbai, eventually the Atlantic Ocean.

A chain is only as strong as its weakest link. Since the two cables eventually merge in Siliguri and from there the link continues to Mumbai, then a single failure along the Siliguri-Mumbai connection will again disconnect Bhutan. Unless, of course, that Indian part of the link is also redundant. But that is not clear from the Kuensel story.

The link speed, which is of vital importance, is not mentioned in the story, but previous articles specify it at around 300 Mbps. If the network is set up correctly, we should start experiencing a faster response time when surfing to international websites.