Globe campaign vs illegal repeaters includes RFIDs

MANILA, Philippines - Ayala-led Globe Telecom Inc. has widened the scope of its campaign against illegal repeaters or signal boosters to include wireless non-contact use of radio-frequency electromagnetic fields to transfer data to minimize if not eliminate network interference.

Froilan Castelo, head of the corporate and legal services group of Globe, said the company’s campaign to address signal interference has been expanded to include the operation of high-intensity radio frequency identification (RFID).

Castelo said the RFID used in automatically identifying and tracking tags attached to objects such as automobile during production to track its progress also causes mobile phone subscribers to experience dropped calls, garbled lines, and weak signal.

He emphasized that Globe would also be relentless in its campaign against operators of high-intensity RFIDs.

 â€œThis should serve as a warning to those who have resorted to selling these illegal equipment that Globe Telecom, in close coordination with authorities concerned, will remain relentless in pursuing retailers peddling these illegal equipment,” he said.

Globe launched the campaign against signal interference in 2011 following mounting incidence of signal interference cases, based on a report made by the company’s network monitoring group, which indicated the use of repeaters.

High incidence of interference had been noted particularly in the metropolitan Manila area.

To date, the telecom provider has uncovered and resolved 15 cases involving the use and sale of illegal repeaters or signal boosters following concerted efforts by the company and police authorities to tackle the issue.

Incidents of interference usually indicate the use of repeaters as such devices are not coordinated with other telecommunications infrastructure of the mobile network.

Illegal repeaters come in the form of indoor or outdoor antennas and wireless adapters which boost network coverage and signal by hogging bandwidth from a legitimate network infrastructure.

Globe believes that the ban imposed by the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) on the sale and use of repeaters and portable cell site equipment would help providers improve their services to subscribers.