Netizens wary of low Internet service before May polls

LAOAG CITY — Netizens in the Ilocos region have expressed disappointment over the very poor Internet connection a few days before the election.

Since last week, PLDT and Smart customers have experienced a degradation or loss of Internet and voice services, which PLDT attributed to fiber cuts in Dagupan City, Pangasinan and in Cabanatuan, Isabela.

“Repair work is ongoing and we will provide updates as they progress. Thank you for your patience,” the network company said in a public statement particularly addressed to customers in parts of San Fernando and Bauang in La Union; Cabanatuan; Baguio; Dagupan and Alaminos in Pangasinan; Tarlac; and Tuguegarao, Cagayan.

In social networking sites, rants about crawling Internet connectivity both from private and public consumers are common status posts in the Philippines, which has the lowest Internet speed in Asia Pacific.

“We are at a point in life when it would be more efficient and productive to travel to Vietnam and sit and work outside a hotel with free public WiFi than to depend on this country’s connectivity,” Mizpah Grace Castro of Laoag City said as she underscored “reliable Internet is a basic service and not a luxury.”

For Nimfa Tolentino of San Nicolas town, she said experiencing very slow Internet services as election nears is bothersome.

“I hope this will be fixed the soonest because I can’t help but think of election sabotage if it continues,” she said.

Meanwhile, works are underway for the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) to establish a national broadband in support of building a reliable telecommunications infrastructure.

Under the Duterte administration, the DICT has an ongoing contract with Facebook to build bypass facility with two landing stations in Baler, Aurora and in Poro Point in San Fernando, La Union. Facebook’s submarine cable will link to both landing stations.

Once completed, the government will get two terabits per second of the international bandwidth “free of charge”, which means more public WiFi with better access will be installed across the country.