MOBILE services provider Globe Telecom Inc. hopes to further strengthen its partnership with the public works department to minimize—if not totally avoid—fiber-cut incidents that disrupt its services.
In separate letters to the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), Globe asked the department to penalize erring contractors for cable-cut incidents.
“The growing incidence of fiber cuts is getting to be a major concern for us. We would like to appeal to the DPWH and their contractors to take caution in undertaking road-construction activities in order to avoid unnecessary cable cuts,” Globe General Counsel Froilan Castelo said.
He said penalizing contractors for fiber cuts would “compel” them to be extra cautious in the execution of their projects and, thus, avoid recurrence of accidental cuts and damage to cable facilities.
Network disruptions caused by fiber-cut incidents adversely impact not only the company’s operations, but could also potentially affect delivery of government services, including emergency response, Castelo said.
Globe provides access to both 911 and 8888, the government’s emergency and complaint hotline, respectively, as well as inbound and outbound SMS accessibility for 2286, a text hotline for the public to directly report incidents to the police.
Castelo said since the start of the year alone, the telecommunications provider already experienced a total of 117 cable cuts attributed to road-construction related activities undertaken by government contractors.
Some of these cable incidents, he said, have led to major network disruption that affected the call, text and Internet services of Globe.
“Even barring major network disruptions, cable-cut incidents cause, at the very least, poor quality of service delivery to consumers, not to mention additional repair costs to the company,” he said.
The company’s bid for a closer coordination with the agency is also in line with efforts to strengthen its business-continuity program.
“By working closely with the DPWH, we hope to address a major concern in ensuring delivery of our major services at all times,” Castelo said.
Earlier this year, the DPWH issued a memorandum directing its field personnel and contractors “to observe extreme caution in the execution of their construction works” to help ensure uninterrupted services of utility companies, including those of telecommunication providers.
The DPWH specifically directed its field personnel and contractors to provide maps highlighting ongoing projects within a given locality and provide the data to utility companies “to avoid accidental cutting and damaging of their lines and facilities that may cause power and communication breakdown.”