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THE
series of earthquakes, including a 7.1-magnitude tremor
which struck Taiwan Tuesday night and Wednesday,
damaging undersea cables and seriously disrupting
Internet flows in the region, affected most members of
the country’s business process outsourcing industry,
particularly call centers.
The
industry alliance insisted Wednesday, however, that most
affected firms had quickly recovered even as
telecommunication companies gave varying estimates on
when full repairs can be done.
“All of
our call centers were initially affected but some of
them were already back up within an hour after their
respective telcos successfully rerouted operations,”
said CCAP (Call Center Association of the Philippines)
executive director, Jojo Uligan in a phone interview
with BusinessMirror.
Uligan
declined to name the firms affected, saying he did not
have all the details yet. He had yet to meet with all
the major telecommunication companies for a full report.
“The important thing is everyone’s working on it round
the clock to restore operations.”
Smart
Communications Inc., Globe Telecom, and Bayantel issued
statements asking subscribers to bear with them at this
time.
In its
statement, Smart said, “the international cable
facilities utilized by PLDT and Smart have suffered
major cable breaks due to the recent earthquake . . . in
Taiwan.” As a result, their IDD (International Direct
Dial) and broadband Internet services are “currently
intermittent” but domestic PLDT & Smart voice and data
services are operating normally.
Similarly, Bayantel said its subscribers should be able
to access local sites but will have problems accessing
those abroad.
Reports
say repairs to the damaged cables could take two to
three weeks.
Smart
and PLDT are “maximizing the use of available
international linkages and finding alternative routes to
hasten the restoration of normal service.”
In the
meantime, Jones Campos, public relations head for Globe
Telecom said their engineers will be rerouting traffic
to normalize operations. “Although the cable damaged off
the coast of Taiwan was a major route, it’s not the only
one that we use so it’s a matter of rerouting traffic.”
Except
for the initial interruption at 3 a.m. and 10 a.m.
Wednesday when the cables got cut, Campos said that
subscribers wouldn’t even feel the effect of the damaged
cables after everything gets rerouted. Bayantel
spokesman John Rojo confirmed that as of 3 p.m.
Wednesday, their Internet operations were already
90-percent functional. |
