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PLDT Inc. assured customers on Thursday that they will continue to have connectivity even when one of its international submarine cable lines undergoes maintenance for the next five days.
In an advisory, the telco said it will divert traffic that typically goes through the Asia-America Gateway (AAG) to its other cable systems and employ local caching to ensure its services continue to run smoothly.
On Wednesday evening, PLDT announced that the operator of the AAG, of which PLDT is a member, will undergo “emergency maintenance activities” in Hong Kong waters from September 26-30.
The short announcement caused customers to panic online, and PLDT’s social media accounts received a good number of anxious inquiries from its subscribers, some of whom assumed there would be an internet outage for five days.
Internet connectivity has become more crucial than ever during the Covid-19 pandemic, as companies are now implementing remote work arrangements and schools, distance learning.
“PLDT assures its customers that measures, such as traffic redirection and local caching, are already in place to minimize the impact of this activity and to ensure that communication and Internet services remain available to PLDT and smart subscribers” , the notice reads.
These measures, the notice reads, will allow PLDT and Smart to fully serve all customers at full capacity by utilizing the additional and spare capacities in all other cable systems that support PLDT and Smart operations.
The largest Philippine telecoms company currently has a network of 17 international cable systems, some of which will be retired in the coming years as they have already exhausted their capacities.
“PLDT has been investing substantially in expanding and increasing the capacity of new and existing international submarine cable systems, such as the Jupiter Cable and Asia Direct Cable systems, to provide redundancy and ensure continuous service in situations like this. These investments are vital because most of the Internet content used by Filipinos comes from abroad, ”the notice reads.
However, he noted that if there were a drastic increase in Internet use in the next five days, compared to the usual traffic recorded in recent weeks, there could be effects on the overall Internet experience of his users.
“In the event that Internet traffic increases beyond the traffic of the last few weeks, there may be a slowdown in peak hours for traffic going to Asia, but no service will be denied, and traffic Internet within the Philippines and the US to be impacted, ”the ad read.
