TABUK CITY, Kalinga – Due to the expansion of its capacity by 30 percent coupled with the transfer of many of its subscribers to Globe, the download speed of the Smart Internet now averages more or less 1.60 Mbps throughout the day.
This is a vast improvement from the .060 Mbps daytime average speed which prompted some 47 users to call on the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) to investigate the company for poor service in November 2015.
The complainants also included the Globe in their complaint because “it’s services is only slightly better than that of Smart.”
However, when asked during the dialogue among representatives of the NTC from the Cordillera and Region 2, Tabuk City LGU officials, Smart and the complainants on August 10 if he could assure the sustainability of the current speed, Smart Consumer Welfare Officer Anthony Fernandez cited the minimum Broadband speed of “256 kbps 80 percent of the time” imposed by the NTC.
During the same dialogue, however, Fernandez informed that on or before February 2017, the company will upgrade to 4G technology.
He said they are now in the process of setting up the necessary infrastructure to support the upgrading of their system in the city.
Although also ordered by NTC Commissioner Gamaliel Cordoba to appear in the dialogue, Globe, in lieu of a representative, sent a position paper to the Sangguniang Panlungsod disputing the contention that the country has slower and more expensive Internet service than Afghanistan.
The position paper did not touch on the specific situation of the Internet service in Tabuk City.
As early as February this year, Globe has started offering products with services with minimum speed of 3 Mbps enabling it to eat into the clientele of Smart.
Fernandez denied the allegation that the slow speed of the telco is due to oversubscription pointing to the canopy technology which he said is dying as the possible culprit.
The NTC-CAR which conducted the investigation said in its report presented during the dialog that the issue of oversubscription should be posed to the telcos because they monitor their systems.
Regarding the issue of very slow response of Smart to calls for technical assistance which the complainants allege take as long as four months at times, Fernandez alleged that the problem is due to the absence of locally based technicians wanting to take the job.
The complainants said at the time that the problem stems from the fact that the technical contractor of the company sends two technicians working in tandem only twice a month to service the city and Paracelis, Mtn. Province.
When it was pointed out that all Smart needs to do is ask the contractor to schedule more days for the technicians assigned to the city to service clients in the locality, Fernandez acceded to talk to the contractor.
As for the request from complainant Franklin Regacho for Smart to set up a billing and complaints sub-office in the city to facilitate action on both customer concerns which was backed up by NTC-CAR OIC Regional Director Dante Vengua, NTC Region 2 Regional Director Reynaldo Sta. Maria and Mayor Ferdinand Tubban, Fernandez would not budge saying that it is a retrogressive move.
Tubban who chaired the dialogue set a follow up meeting among the parties on September 8 to hear and discuss updates from the telcos and NTC on how the problems raised by the complainants are being addressed.
During the dialogue, Smart revealed that it has already visited 17 of the 47 complainants.
Vengua apologized in behalf of the agency for the eight months delay in the action of the NTC on the request for investigation.
He said that on the part of the NTC-CAR, they were only informed of the complaint when they received the order to act on it last week of July.**Estanislao Albano, Jr.
