Top Internet problems in RP: downtime, delayed resolution

Just like the potholes that mark its road network, the country’s line to the information superhighway is also not a paved one. In fact, network downtime occurs 1 to 3 times a month and would normally take up to four hours per month to restore it.


In a study presented by Internet service provider Pacific Internet Philippines (PacNet), it found that Internet downtime in the country is experienced by 78 percent of the population. Most of the time (53 percent), customers are not satisfied with the long resolution period.

"The truth of the matter is that Internet downtime is a very real occurrence here. A business that relies on constant connectivity cannot possibly survive in this type of environment," Jojie Yap, president and CEO of PacNet, said during a recent press briefing.

Yap, a former president of PISO (Philippine Internet Service Providers) and a vocal critic of "monopolistic" practices of large telecom carriers, said the brunt of taking customers’ complain and negotiating with the telcos usually fall on their shoulders as an ISP.

When downtime happens it normally takes constant and long follow-ups with the carriers. This is something, she said haft-jokingly, that their company’s principals in Singapore don’t quite understand.

But being the only telconeutral ISP by geographic reach in the region, it can offer back-up connectivity for data, voice, to corporate business and consumer customers, Yap pointed out.

This is precisely what PacNet is doing, she said, with its new solution called Optimaxx, which is a suite of services aimed at ensuring network availability for customers running mission-critical applications to spare them of incurring business losses.

PacNet product manager William Cabelin said they actually launched the solution in October last year but deferred its formal announcement after they were done testing its reliability. He said they now have about 20 large customers for the new service.

The Optimaxx suite, Cabelin said, comes with a multiple-telco line system inclusive of the free use of a Cisco integrated services router, network design and configuration, free installation with provision of Network Utilization Monitoring Tool, and round-theclock technical support.

As a way assuring its customers, Cabelin said PacNet is committing 99.95 percent availability of Internet services directly within its control excluding regular maintenance schedules.

Because of its initial success, executives said the locally developed solution will soon be rolled out in other countries where PacNet operates such as Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia, India, Thailand, and Malaysia.
By MELVIN G. CALIMAG - Manila Bulletin