MANILA, Philippines — Telecommunications and digital service provider PLDT informed its customers of a possible Internet traffic on the duration of the five-day emergency maintenance activities by one of its international cable system operators.

In its advisory, PLDT said one of its submarine cable systems, Asia-America Gateway, will conduct maintenance works in the waters of Hong Kong from Saturday, September 26 at 9:00 AM to Wednesday September 30 at 5:00 AM

Because of this, PLDT customers may experience service interruptions during the five day maintenance efforts but the company assured its clients that measures will be undertaken to minimize the effects. 

“In light of this, we wish to assure PLDT and Smart customers of continued internet connectivity all throughout.  We have identified alternative cable systems to keep our connectivity resilient,” the PLDT said.

“We have also adopted measures such as traffic rerouting and local caching, ensuring that most frequently downloaded content is located in the Philippines,” it added. 

The company assured that students can still do their online studies and exams, and users in homes and businesses can go about their normal internet-based activities during this time.

Telecommunications firm PLDT on Wednesday (September 23) announced they will conduct an emergency maintenance on one of its submarine cable systems from September 26 to 30.

In an advisory, the telco firm said the operator of the international trans-Pacific submarine cable system Asia-America Gateway (AAG) will conduct emergency maintenance activities. Customers will experience ‘minimize impact’ in internet connection, however, the PLDT assured they will continue their service for all PLDT and Smart subscribers.

“We wish to assure our customers of continued connectivity, as we have alternative cable systems to keep our services going during this maintenance period of AAG,” the advisory reads. AAC

MANILA, Philippines – Senator Panfilo Lacson, chairman of the Senate committee on national defense and security, on Thursday urged the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) to aim for an “excellent” speed of internet connection.

Lacson made the remark in response to the view of DICT Secretary Gregorio Honasan II that the Philippines “is not doing too badly” in terms of internet speed performance during his agency’s 2021 budget hearing in Congress.

“With all due respect to a highly regarded Cavalier and distinguished former Senate colleague, “not so bad” may sound worse than ‘not so good,’” he said in a statement.

Honasan earlier said that while other countries have 55 megabytes per second (mbps) internet speeds, the 3 to 7mbps internet speed in the country “is not that bad” amid complaints over slow speed.

“In the middle of a pandemic when the order of the day is virtual communication, what we want to hear, at least realistically, is ‘good enough,’” Lacson said.

“Of course, it goes without saying, ‘very good’ or even ‘excellent’ is what we all want to hear from DICT. Clearly, there is much room for improvement,” he added.

According to the DICT, the country’s current internet speed could reach up to 25.07mbps, compared to the maximum 7.91mbps in 2016.

The agency said the country’s slower internet connection is due to lack of telecommunications infrastructure compared to other countries that have fix broadbands which require lots of telecommunication towers and fiber optic cables.