PLDT says international traffic back to normal after repair of damaged cable

MANILA, Philippines - Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) said yesterday its international traffic capacity has been restored to normal levels following the completion of repairs of the damaged facilities of the Asia Pacific Cable Network 2 (APCN2) international cable system.

As a result, PLDT said services to its business customers are likewise expected to normalize.

PLDT said it received confirmed reports about 10 cable faults involving four international cable systems.

The affected cable systems and cable segments were: SMW3 (Taiwan branch and another branching unit in Taiwan area), APCN2 (Singapore-Malaysia and China-Taiwan ), APCN (Hong Kong-Taiwan , Philippines-Taiwan , and Philippines-Hong Kong), and EAC (Hong Kong-Taiwan BU1, Hong Kong-Taiwan BU2, and Singapore-Hong Kong).

Four other cable systems, namely, C2C, FLAG, FEA and NACS, have also been affected. But PLDT does not use these cable systems, it said.

For its part, PLDT’s mobile phone unit Smart Communications said its network capacity for international and broadband services has been fully restored following the completion of repairs of the APCN 2 facilities that were damaged earlier this week.

Service levels for Smart’s international voice and SMS services, and, for Smart Bro and Smart Bro Plug-It Internet services have thus been normalized, it added.

Asian operators earlier suffered from multiple cable breaks which disrupted international traffic.

The APCN2 – which links Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Taiwan, China, South Korea and Japan – may have taken the biggest beating.

In the Philippines, telecom firms Globe, PLDT and Bayan Telecommunications have re-routed traffic as a temporary measure.