Internet users across the Philippines experienced slower and intermittent connections on Friday, October 2, after an undersea cable segment linking the country to Singapore went offline, forcing major telecommunications providers to reroute international data traffic through alternative routes, newsbytes.ph reported.
Globe, PLDT, and Converge Reroute Traffic Amid Bandwidth Reductions
The disruption reduced available international bandwidth, causing higher latency, sluggish downloads, and video buffering when accessing online services hosted outside the Philippines. Globe began rerouting traffic Thursday night through redundant and alternative international links to maintain services for mobile, broadband, and corporate customers, according to Joel Agustin, SVP and head of Network Planning and Engineering at Globe, who stated, “Our teams are working continuously to ease congestion and restore normal internet service as quickly as possible. In parallel, we are working with our partners to validate the cause of the disruption.” PLDT separately confirmed in an advisory issued at 9:30 p.m. on October 2 that the submarine cable cut affected its services nationwide, noting that it had successfully rerouted most of the affected traffic and expected service to normalize shortly. Converge ICT Solutions also reported that its technical teams successfully shifted data traffic going to and coming from Singapore to other submarine cable systems, continuing to monitor network stability for offshore applications.
University Network Advisories and Consumer Impact
The UP Diliman Network Helpdesk issued an advisory warning that many of its upstream internet providers connect through these major international data pipelines, telling users to expect increased latencies and intermittent performance when accessing offshore sites. Rappler.com noted that while ordinary internet users do not lose connectivity entirely during such subsea outages, redirected traffic must travel farther or share capacity with more users, resulting in noticeable slowdowns for websites, cloud services, and game servers hosted overseas. Globe confirmed that its primary IT systems remained operational and that a separate issue affecting Android phone login access had already been resolved, while repairs to the damaged subsea fiber are projected to take several weeks.
Repair Timelines and Next Steps for Telco Operators
Telecommunications operators continue to monitor network performance while physical repairs to the severed subsea cable segment are underway. Globe, PLDT, and Converge have indicated that restoration efforts will take several weeks to complete, during which international traffic will rely entirely on redundant links and alternative subsea routes.
