After ‘baseless’ accusations vs PLDT, Globe landline woes due to fiber cut in its own network

A breakdown in Globe Telecom’s fiber optic transmission backbone in Metro Manila was found to be the actual cause of Globe’s network problems in northern Luzon over the past few days. Globe engineers finally made this admission to their PLDT counterparts Thursday morning.

“Actually, PLDT engineers had already detected on their own that Globe had suffered a fiber cut.  But this belated admission by Globe personnel confirmed that Globe’s earlier claims that its network problems had been caused by outages in PLDT’sinterconnection links were actually baseless,” said PLDT spokesperson Ramon Isberto.

“It was uncalled for in the first place for Globe to have issued on Tuesday a ‘public advisory’ blaming PLDT for its network woes.  It was also presumptuous of them to speak on PLDT’s behalf regarding the status of our facilities,” he added.

“For the sake of its subscribers, Globe should stop trying to pass the buck and focus instead onfixing its continuing network problems,” he said.

This controversy started when Globe issued a statement on Tuesday, Feb. 26, saying that PLDT was having “multiple outages on local interconnection” in several parts of Northern Luzon.

“As a result, Globe landline customers will not be able to make local calls to PLDT in the following areas: La Union, Baguio, Tarlac, Bulacan, Pampanga, and Nueva Ecija,” said Globe.

Globe issued another statement on Feb. 28, providing a detailed account of its alleged local interconnection problems in La Union, Baguio, Tarlac, Bulacan and Nueva Ecija.

PLDT’s network operations group however reported that there were no malfunctions in its interconnection links with Globe.

Upon further investigation, PLDT found out that the problem actually came from a fiber optic cable (FOC) break in Globe’s transmission network in F. Manalo corner Blumentritt Street in San Juan, Metro Manila, just 6 kilometers away from the PLDT Sampaloc office which houses PLDT’s interconnection facilities for landline operators such as Globe, Bayantel and Digitel.

This particular FOC links Globe’s fixed line network in northern Luzon to PLDT.  So when it was cut, Globe landline subscribers in the region were affected.

“What disturbs us is that Globe officials were not forthcoming in their conduct throughout this episode,” Isberto said.

PLDT received the firstreport on the alleged outages of its interconnection links with Globe’s northern Luzon network at 4:34 pm on February 26 (Tuesday).  This was immediately investigated by PLDT network engineers.

They found however thatPLDT’s interconnection facilities were operating normally.  An indication of this was the fact that the landline networks of Bayantel and Digitel, which are also linked to the PLDT Sampaloc interconnection facilities, were not suffering any difficulties.

To pinpoint the cause of Globe’s problems, PLDT requested in the afternoon of February 27 (Wednesday) for a joint test with Globe.  Instead of responding positively and sending a technical team to PLDT’s Sampaloc office to conduct a joint test, Globe pressed PLDT to take action on its alleged outages.

Meantime, PLDT engineers had determined through their own technical tests and field checks that Globe had indeed suffered a FOC break in San Juan, Metro Manila. This was confirmed the following morning by Globe technicians.

Globe’s signal links were finally restored at 12:57 pm February 28.  It was only then that Globe personnel showed up at the PLDT Sampaloc office to conduct a joint test.

“If Globe was intent on solving the problem as soon as possible, why did it take them a entire day to respond to PLDT’s request for a joint test?  In the meantime, Globe issued another statement blaming PLDT once more for its network troubles.  And then, it turns out in the end that the problem stemmed from a fiber cut in Globe’s own transmission network.  Why this moro moro?” Isberto said.

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