Subsea cable cut between Philippines and Singapore disrupts internet services

Internet users in the Philippines face intermittent connections after undersea cable cut forces telecoms to reroute traffic to restore services

AT A GLANCE

• On October 2, internet users in the Philippines faced slow and intermittent connections due to an undersea cable cut linking the Philippines and Singapore, impacting several telecommunications providers.
• PLDT and Converge ICT Solutions reported that they successfully rerouted most affected traffic, while Globe warned customers of potential slow access and worked on restoring normal service.
• The outage may lead to slower website loading and higher latency for users accessing international services, although local services are expected to be less affected.

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MANILA, Philippines – Internet users in the Philippines experienced slower and intermittent connections on Friday, October 2, after an undersea cable segment linking the Philippines and Singapore went offline, affecting several telecommunications providers and internet service providers.

PLDT said the submarine cable cut affected services nationwide. The telco said it had successfully rerouted most of the affected traffic and expected service to normalize shortly.

Converge ICT Solutions likewise said it had rerouted internet and data traffic going to and coming from Singapore through other submarine cables. Its technical teams were continuing to monitor connections to apps and websites hosted in Singapore.

Globe, meanwhile, advised customers that they could experience slow internet access on both mobile and broadband services because of a technical issue, saying it was working to restore normal access as soon as possible.

The UP Diliman Network Helpdesk also issued an advisory saying one of the undersea cable segments between the Philippines and Singapore was offline.

The university said many of its upstream internet providers connect through these major international data routes, which could result in “increased latencies and intermittent performance,” particularly when users access websites and services hosted overseas.

What the cable cut means for consumers

For ordinary internet users, a submarine cable outage does not necessarily mean losing internet access entirely.

Telecommunications companies can redirect, or reroute, data through other submarine cables and international connections. But with traffic moved away from its usual route, data may have to travel farther or share capacity with more users.

Consumers may therefore notice slower website loading, higher latency or “ping,” video buffering, sluggish downloads and intermittent connections, particularly when accessing apps, websites, cloud services or game servers hosted outside the Philippines.

Services hosted locally may be less affected, while connections that normally pass through Singapore or other affected international routes could experience more noticeable slowdowns.

Submarine cables carry much of the internet traffic moving between countries. Having multiple cable routes allows telecommunications companies to keep users connected when one link fails, although performance can temporarily suffer while traffic is being rerouted.

PLDT and Converge said they had already rerouted affected traffic as of October 2, while Globe said restoration efforts were underway. – Rappler.com