Internet users in the country reported connectivity problems on Friday, October 2, as an undersea cable segment between the Philippines and Singapore was reported offline.
The UP Diliman Network Helpdesk said it was informed that one of the undersea cable segments connecting the two countries was offline, warning of increased latency and intermittent performance, particularly when accessing websites hosted overseas.
The university said the issue was not limited to its network and that other local internet service providers and telecommunications companies could experience slowdowns depending on their primary links.
Users of Globe, PLDT and Converge ICT also reported connectivity problems through outage-monitoring platform Downdetector on Friday evening.
Downdetector relies on user reports and does not independently determine the cause of service disruptions.
Network monitoring platform CableStatus, meanwhile, detected unusually high latency along the Philippines-Singapore route.
The platform recorded average latency of around 177 milliseconds, more than three times the recent baseline of about 53 milliseconds, based on measurements from 28 independent RIPE Atlas anchors.
CableStatus cautioned that the finding was based on network telemetry and did not confirm a physical cable fault or identify a specific affected cable.
GeoCables, another submarine cable monitoring platform, also did not show a major country-level internet outage in the Philippines as of its latest check on October 2. It classified the country’s internet status as operational, although its data showed varying signal dips among individual providers.
The Southeast Asia-Japan Cable (SJC), which has landing points in Nasugbu in the Philippines and Tuas in Singapore, was also listed by GeoCables as having normal health based on its latest available check on October 1.
The monitoring data therefore does not establish which undersea cable segment was reportedly affected.
As of Friday evening, it also remains unclear whether the connectivity problems reported by Globe, PLDT and Converge users are directly related to the reported Philippines-Singapore undersea cable disruption.
