Telco providers have suffered from outages wrought by the wrath of typhoon "Kristine" even as the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) had sought to quickly repair damaged facilities and restore services.

In a statement, the NTC said public telecommunications entities (PTEs) such as Converge ICT Solutions Inc., DITO Telecommunity Corp., Globe Telecom Inc. and Smart Communications Inc. had experienced "significant" service outages, especially in provinces hit by "Kristine" in the Bicol and Eastern Visayas regions as of midday on Wednesday, Oct. 23.

"Minor" outages in northern Luzon and the Calabarzon region were also reported to the NTC.

"The primary reason for these telecommunication services disruptions were commercial power interruptions, which were either pre-emptively initiated by power companies/electric cooperatives or naturally caused by the typhoon," the NTC explained.

The NTC said Converge's services were disrupted in the regions of Bicol, Cagayan Valley, Calabarzon, Central Luzon, Cordillera, Eastern Visayas and Ilocos.

"Generator sets were deployed to provide temporary power to the network. However, some restoration efforts have been delayed due to impassable flooded roads," the NTC said, citing a report from Converge.

As of 6:00 PM on Oct. 23, Converge restored its services to 32 percent of affected customers, the NTC added.

As for DITO, the NTC said "critical" outages were experienced in northern and southern Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao.

For its part, Globe reported to the NTC that services in Albay, Camarines Norte, Camarines Sur and Catanduanes were crippled by outages covering 75 to 92 percent of users in these Bicol provinces.

Globe nonetheless reported it already restored 12 percent of services in Leyte and 17 percent in Southern Leyte by 4:00 PM on Oct. 23.

Meanwhile, the NTC said Smart faced a "difficult challenge brought by severe flooding in the Bicol Region that hampered its restoration efforts."

"Smart also reported to the NTC that 21 families in Daet, Camarines Norte have been given shelter in the middle of this calamity in a PLDT cable landing station," it added.

Also, "the PLDT-Smart Group reported that it is gearing up to deploy relief goods with PLDT and Smart volunteers and Alagang Kapatid Foundation," the NTC said.

Even Elon Musk's SpaceX "extended to the NTC its offer of aid in the form of Starlink internet services for Filipino first responders to utilize during rescue and relief operations."

Across all PTEs, the NTC said they "already placed the necessary personnel on standby in areas severely affected, awaiting safe deployment to conduct fast repairs and rectification."

"For areas where it is safe to conduct repairs, service restoration efforts are already ongoing to minimize service downtime," it said.

Even before "Kristine" entered the Philippine Area of Responsibility (PAR), the NTC issued a memorandum directing PTEs to ensure continuity of telco services during the typhoon.

"In the memorandum, the NTC instructed PTEs to provide sufficient personnel, standby generators with extra fuel, necessary tools and spare equipment in the areas to be affected by 'Kristine,'" it noted.

"In addition, PTEs were tasked to immediately activate the 'Libreng Tawag' and 'Libreng Charging Stations' in areas that will be affected," according to the NTC.

As "Kristine" continues to batter the country, the NTC said it is "closely monitoring the situation and, with the utmost cooperation of PTEs, working to restore telecommunication services as swiftly as possible so that those affected individuals can remain in touch with their loved ones amid this severe typhoon."