PLDT Inc. on Thursday warned customers that they might experience slower internet speeds from Sept. 26 to 30 due to maintenance activities on submarine cables.
The “emergency” maintenance activities will be conducted on the Asia-America Gateway (AAG) submarine cables in the waters of Hong Kong, the mobile operator said in an e-mailed statement.
The telco giant said connectivity will continue during the maintenance period, as it has alternative cable systems.
“PLDT has been investing substantially in expanding and boosting the capacity of existing and new international submarine cable systems, such as the Jupiter Cable and the Asia Direct Cable systems, to provide redundancy to ensure continuous service in situations like this. Such investments are vital because bulk of internet content used by Filipinos comes from overseas,” the company said.
It said measures like “traffic rerouting” and “local catching” have been put in place to minimize the impact of the maintenance activities on its services.
“Should there be internet traffic spike beyond the traffic of the past weeks, some slowing down in the busiest hours for traffic going to Asia may be experienced, but no service will be denied and internet traffic within the Philippines and to the US will not be impacted,” PLDT added.
Globe Telecom, Inc. issued its own advisory, assuring customers that the emergency maintenance activities that will be performed on the AAG submarine cables will not affect its services.
Globe said it continues to carry out network upgrades to improve its services.
“All the network upgrades are expected to be completed by 2021,” it said in a statement.
Hastings Holdings, Inc., a unit of PLDT Beneficial Trust Fund subsidiary MediaQuest Holdings, Inc., has a stake in BusinessWorld through the Philippine Star Group, which it controls. — Arjay L. Balinbin
