OFFICIALS from two major telecommunications firms faced the Cebu City Council on Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2024, to address complaints of inadequate signal quality, especially in mountain barangays.
Patrick Gloria, Globe Telecom’s vice president for External Affairs Patrick, and Anthony Fernandez, Smart Communications’ senior manager for regulatory office, addressed issues of dropped calls and poor connectivity.
The officials said that many cases of inadequate signal quality experienced by their consumers stem from a lack of information on how to use or adapt to the latest technology.
City Councilor Nestor Archival questioned the telecommunications firms over the inadequate signal quality that resulted in dropped calls, poor signal, and other concerns.
Archival said recently there was a problem with the signal of Smart Telecommunications in the Barangay Talamban area. While inside his house, phone calls would occasionally drop due to poor signal.
Signal gaps
Gloria acknowledged during an executive session on Wednesday that there are signal gaps within some portions of the city and in the mountain barangays.
He said the issue might be caused by a lack of cell sites, either due to the absence of tower construction or the disapproval of tower installations by local barangay officials.
Other factor could include signals being blocked by high-rise buildings.
Gloria said there is a need to intensify information dissemination to consumers on how to use the latest technology, operate gadgets, and perform basic troubleshooting.
Archival responded that the problem might be related to current cell towers no longer being able to accommodate the high number of devices and subscribers beyond their capacity.
Gloria said Globe Telecom has more than a hundred cell towers in Cebu City alone, where a single tower can handle several thousand devices.
Wi-Fi calling
If an area, particularly indoors, experiences a lack of signal due to unavailability of towers, Gloria said that the latest innovation to troubleshoot is the activation of Wi-Fi calling on the latest devices.
Wi-Fi calling uses the signal from Wi-Fi routers to boost the cellular signal, allowing consumers to have uninterrupted and clear voice calls.
Gloria said that this is a cost-efficient measure and less expensive than constructing new cell towers.
He added that the latest smartphones and devices have advanced settings and features, which consumers have not yet been informed on how to use or activate.
Fernandez echoed Gloria’s sentiments. He said the advancement of technology has resulted in high demand for mobile data connection and a decrease in demand for cellular signals.
Investments
He added that the telecommunications firms had invested in the construction of cell towers that can transmit and receive 2G, 3G, LTE, and 5G signals that are automatically read by smartphones.
He said signal might differ depending on the proximity of the devices to the nearest cell tower and the type of signal it emitted.
Fernandez said the better option is to manually select the type of signal that consumers’ devices receive and transmit, depending on the proximity of the cell tower.
He added that activating voice over Wi-Fi calling on consumers’ devices is another measure to improve signal.
The number of high-rise buildings in the city has also played a factor in the discrepancy in signal transmission, Fernandez said. / EHP