Biz group urges telcos to formulate contingency plan

THE Cagayan de Oro Chamber of Commerce and Industry is urging telecommunication companies to create a contingency plan should another network interruption occur.

Irene Floro, Oro Chamber president, said the four-hour Globe network interruption on June 4, cost the business sector millions of losses.

“It has really affected our business sector because we are all dependent on the network, on Globe, we don’t use landlines anymore. And when that happened, we cannot transact business, transfer money even,” Floro said.

Although the network was restored hours later, Floro said ATM services of banks were unavailable.

She said although it was only four hours, it caused a “big amount of disturbance of the business sector.”

“We hope they will come up with a contingency plan once this happen again, to also advise Globe or smart users that they shouldn’t panic as well when something like this happens again,” Floro said.

Councilor George Goking, chairperson of the committee on trade and commerce, advised the telco giant to create an emergency broadcast system which can be used by emergency calls.

“We are worried that there are patients who were not attended to because they cannot call 911 since there were no signal, fortunately, no one died, (and) no one was affected. But we shouldn’t sit around, we have to do something,” he said.

James Lopez, Globe Telecom’s liaison officer said, they too, are still investigating the incident and how all of three of their submarine fiber lines were cut.

Lopez, however, said that this also has happened before, and the submarine lines were cut due to the strong sea current.

“But rest assured when something like this happen, Globe is always on top of it and our number one priority is to get our customers connected the soonest possible,” he said.

Lopez also assured that they will create a contingency plan and update the public on the investigation.

Meanwhile, National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) regional director Ted Buenavista said the NTC leadership will determine if Globe committed violations.

Buenavista said if it is proven that there is negligence on the part of the provider, penalties will be imposed.

“But there are also exemptions, for example, if it is beyond the control of the provider, then there is consideration,” he added.

For now, Lopez said Globe is still trying to fix its primary and secondary fiber lines. Only the third backup line was restored since Tuesday afternoon.

Trending

No stories found.

Just in

No stories found.

Branded Content

No stories found.
SunStar Publishing Inc.
www.sunstar.com.ph