The Philippine Chamber of Telecommunications Operators (PCTO) reminds the public to use the Internet more responsibly as the national government implements an enhanced community quarantine in the entire island of Luzon.

Companies are now enabling employees to work from home, following the declaration of Malacanang for people to restrict their movements to mitigate the rapid spread of the COVID-19 virus. As communities are called upon to practice social distancing, telecommunications now play a vital role in sustaining economic activity in the country. Employees now turn to the internet as their only alternative to face-to-face meetings.

Forecasting an increased network traffic from home internet users, Philippine internet service providers (ISPs) are asking customers to be conscientious with using connected apps and services.
“We expect internet usage to grow exponentially given the government directive to work from home.

Presently, we have enough capacity with the investments we’ve made into our network in the past years but since the internet is a shared resource, we encourage our customers to still use the internet responsibly and refrain from using torrents that hog bandwidth and negatively impact others,” said PCTO Chairman Enrico delos Reyes.

Unlike robust enterprise networks used by businesses, home and mobile broadband networks may
become strained quickly with more users accessing the internet simultaneously. As a precautionary
measure, customers are urged to adhere to these best practices to minimize strain on the network, and ensure quality customer experience:

• Use landline as much as possible to decongest call traffic from mobile networks

• Download urgent documents only. Other documents should be downloaded during off-peak hours

• Heavy files should be transferred via sharing services, and attached as links instead of as attachments to emails

• Use of entertainment apps such as video streaming and gaming is encouraged during off-peak hours

Local telco operators are relentless in their efforts to increase capacity, and will continue its essential operations and expansion during the quarantine period.

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