NEWSFLASH

50% OF BAGUIO PHONES DOWN

Baguio City, Dec. 31, 1999 The city was gripped with Y2K panic and confusion as 50% of the telephone lines serviced by the Pilipino Telephone Corporation (Piltel), controlling almost 80 percent of the market, went on and off Thursday.

Piltel resident manager Nicolas R. Tabora however clarified that the erratic line outages were not caused by the Y2K bug but by repairs on some underground units.

Ironically, three of the four telephone lines of the Y2K command center at the Baguio City Hall were also out of order.

The police emergency lines, 169, 166 and 160 also went dead.

Vic Tomasar, Cordillera Director of the Office of Civil Defense, was coordinating with another phone company, Digitel, to restore the emergency telephone services. His office had to rely heavily on the radio network to coordinate crew members in responding to emergency calls.

Some banks along Session road went on alert even as their automated machines went off-line. Most banks have also acquired power generators as a fallback for power failures.

Many store owners along Magsaysay Avenue complained that the erratic and intermittent phone connections were affecting their business especially with the surge of orders during the New Year’s shopping rush.

Also severely affected were the city’s Internet Cafes, who depend on phone lines for connection online.