GlobeTel's consumer base unfazed by network crash

Although Globe Telecom's corporate business Internet provider arm, Globequest admitted that the network crash that happened some few months ago had slightly affected its business, exodus of subscribers was immediately prevented.

"We have not [really] experienced exodus of customers to another network. They understood that it was beyond our control," said Jesus C. Romero, head for GlobeQuest Enterprise Business Group (EBG).

The two-day network crash that affected a wide signal infrastructure of Globe Telecom, including the Internet, mobile telecommunication, specifically in the Visayas area, has brought about impressions that some big corporate clients using its Internet connection portal has decided to transfer to its competitor provider.

However, Romero dismissed this impression, saying "we haven't really lost a lot of customers. What is important is we got their trust back," he said.

"There are some who transferred. But most of our clients were able to weigh the repercussions of transferring. They have realized that the crash was a unique event," he added.

Because of the breakdown, he said Globe's Innove Communications, the company that operates GlobeQuest has invested sizeable amount of money to put up back-up cabling, and network infrastructure to avoid similar problem to happen in the future.

Industry sources said that the two-day breakdown of Globe's entire network connection in the Visayas was believed to be a sabotage, and was not really an accident. ongoing investigation is being done.

GlobeQuest is servicing significant number of big companies in Cebu, in the telecommunication requirements, especially the call centers, and other Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) operations.

The back-up network infrastructure, will assure clients of continuous service, if similar problem may occur.

Because of the importance of Internet connection in businesses today, more importantly in the BPOs and call center operations, uninterrupted connection is a priority requirement. An hour of lost web connection, means huge lost of business/money.

With the strengthened infrastructure support, Romero believes that Globequest will be able to take bigger share in the market, which is dominantly shared by only Globe and its competitor PLDT.

The enhanced network platform has also brought about the introduction of GlobeQUEST ICON (IP Converged Optical Network), first in Southeast Asia provides a virtual LAN (Local Area Network) service, the Virtual Private LAN service (VPLS).

VPLS is the next wave of VPN services, which enables business offices to extend the experience of being in a local area network across distances of their remote branches, using the same Ethernet network transmission.