LINGAYEN, Pangasinan – The Sangguniang Panlalawigan (SP) looks into the quality and speed of the internet service of major internets service providers (ISP) in the province by conducting an inquiry during a session recently at the SP Session Hall, Capitol Building here.
Vice-Governor Jose Ferdinand Z. Calimlim, Jr. said that the probe is the provincial board’s way to relay to and elicit answers from the ISPs the clamor and complaints of the citizenry who feel shortchanged due to their collective “slow speed” internet subscription experience.
“This is not the voice of the Sangguniang Panlalawigan alone. This is the voice of the entire populace of Pangasinan,” he clarified.
Among the four companies invited by the august body to the question hour, the Philippine Long Distance Telecommunications Company sent its representative in the person of its Pangasinan operations manager Marlon Molano.
Six board members took turns in the podium to ferret out the truth from the PLDT Pangasinan head with Fifth District Board Member Clemente Arboleda hurling successive queries on technical details.
Residing in Urdaneta City, Arboleda even presented a seven-day speed log record of varying internet speed of his subscription to PLDT that all came short of meeting the 15 megabyte per second (mbps) speed plan he has been paying for.
Responding to the board member, Molano said that the company is continuously rehabilitating the “out-of-shape” facilities it has acquired in Central Pangasinan, which services the Provincial Capitol Compound here.
The telco firm also is set to roll out 120 projects in Pangasinan next year that will upgrade and expand weatherproof cable operation coverage for more stable internet connection for its 40, 000 subscribers in the province.
“From one to ten, how would you rate your service?” posed Board Member Raul Sison of the second district to Molano, to which the latter responded, “A seven, sir…There are complainants who can’t be satisfied such as those who complain of problems with the facilities. There are those who have problems regarding users.”
Calimlim told Molano: “If you compare your service to the rest of the world, as already said by Sebastian Duterte (in a social media post) that we have a crappy internet service here. We also know that when we go out-of-the-country, even in the remotest areas, the internet is fast and is free of charge. But here, it is already paid yet it does not measure up.”
This inquiry was pursued by the provincial board in response to the motion of Board Member Liberato Villegas of the fourth district in a session last Sept. 12.
By Dexter A. See
