NTC to intervene in PLDT-Globe interconnection row

MANILA, Philippines – The National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) plans to summon telecom networks, Globe Telecom Inc. and Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) over the issue of interconnectivity between the two networks in Northern Luzon, according to Rey Espinosa regulatory and policy affairs head of PLDT.

The phone networks are blaming each other for lack of connectivity between them in several cities in Northern Luzon. 

“We welcome the NTC approach because it will be the proper forum and we can clearly demonstrate to NTC that we are not at fault. Certain failure to interconnect is not intentional or deliberate on our part. Interconnection is not ‘plug and play’ process to interconnection, have to meet certain conditions on both sides of the network before you can physically interconnect them. There has to be readiness on both networks,” said Espinosa.

Outages in North Luzon were first reported on February 25, when local interconnection with PLDT in Bulacan was monitored to be out of service. On February 26, other North Luzon local interconnections with PLDT (La Union, Baguio, Tarlac, Bulacan, Nueva Ecija) also went out of service, owing to the unavailability of signaling links.

Globe said all of its transmission facilities were working in peak condition especially in light of the company’s $700 million network modernization program. PLDT also confirmed that its interconnection facilities serving Northern Luzon were operating normally, and pointed to a cut in Globe’s fiber optic cable as the cause.

Globe said even as their company experienced a fiber cut in San Juan, Metro Manila in the late afternoon of February 27, it had nothing to do with the North Luzon outages. Globe also claimed it was able to determine that the fiber cut in was intentional, and was not caused by accident.

“There is an agreement between Globe and PLDT on an interconnection level. Last year we agreed to connect 6 points but actually interconnected only two. The reason 4 have remained unconnected is because there is an issue of each point of interconnection that affects both the PLDT network side and the Globe side. But both companies continue to engage in moving the completion well within the year. We are closed to interconnecting two more of those 4 sites,” Espinosa.

Espinosa said that while the date of the NTC summoning has not been confirmed, it will happen soon. “Our regulatory people were told already by the NTC to prepare,” he said.

“It is not true that we caused the fiber break of globe. We discovered it because it affected even our cross network service. The insinuation that PLDT has something to do with the fiber break up is untrue,” Espinosa added. – Rappler.com