Holidays best & worst times for telco engineers

Home, with loved ones. That’s how we generally celebrate the most joyous of seasons.    

Unfortunately, the nature of their work requires some people to make the sacrifice of having to spend Christmas and New Year at work or away from family and friends. Among them are doctors, nurses, police officers, security guards – those whose service is needed 24/7.

There’s a new addition to the list: telecommunications network engineers.

In this high-tech era when more and more seasons’ greetings are exchanged via SMS, they make sure that the network is in top form so that everyone, indeed, has a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. And this means going on extended, or even 24-hour network duty.

"When everyone else is on holiday, we’re working overtime," Dante Medina, Smart Communications’ Network Services Division (NSD) head for project management and implementation, says with a sigh but in good humor.

The volume of text messages and phone calls are highest during the holidays. You can imagine then what it takes to manage such a huge volume of message traffic.  

"All NSD people are on alert, including our superiors. Central coordination is maintained in order to provide fast decision-making and implementation," says Clint Cation of the NSD Planning and Engineering Division.

Occasionally accidents happen. "Once, a fiber optic cable got burned when a merrymaker mistook it for an ordinary cable and hung a sinturon ni Hudas. It was a strategic transmission line because it connected calls to Cebu," recalls Ronald Peralta, a supervisor.

"We scrambled to our feet as we figured out how to reroute communications," he adds.

To prevent similar incidents, NSD has been planning its holiday operations as early as November. Engineers have prepared network back-ups and other redundancy mea-sures.

They also have worked on expanding the capacity (SMS, switch, BTS, transmission) in anticipation of the increase in cellphone usage during the holidays. They also set up temporary network control centers that would monitor fluctuations in the network.

Yes, while other Smart employees are merrily feasting with their loved ones, engineers remain on duty on 12-hour shifts to keep people connected. The only time engineers get to enjoy a little celebration is usually around 2 a.m., after the peak hours when SMS and call traffic slows down.

"We’re always on field assignment at Christmas. If a cell site goes out of service, we rush to the site. And if a switch is congested, we add connections to accommodate the higher traffic," says Orland Cubacub, who has been working during the holidays since 1997.

He has learned to enjoy himself even in such an unenviable situation.

"Ang masaya dun, may libreng pakain ang Smart," he says. "We gather the roving guards, and we have a picnic."

Of course, engineers at work on holidays miss their families.  

Deecree Omas-As, from Iloilo, has been spending the holidays on network watch at the office for the past two years. It’s difficult to be away from loved ones on these special days, he laments. But he says he gets a different high knowing he gets the job done.

"There is a special fulfill-ment," he says.

Cation says, "If there is smooth operation during the holidays, it only means our preparations paid off and that our subscribers enjoy good service."  

That’s the Smart engineers’ way of spreading goodwill and holiday cheer.