MANILA, Philippines, March 23, 2020 — Leading telecoms and digital services provider PLDT is encouraging businesses to make use of its business-grade collaboration tools to support their work-from-home arrangements and ensure their safety amid the coronavirus outbreak.
The remote collaboration solutions being offered include: Cisco Webex, Microsoft Office Teams, and Google Hangouts.
“We’re here to assist businesses in providing these timely solutions and aid them in their transition to these new operational norms we’re all adapting to. These will allow them to stay connected in their collaboration efforts and become productive to their respective companies and teams similar to being physically present in the office,” said PLDT Head of Enterprise Jovy Hernandez.
Under their collaboration tools, PLDT is giving out free trial period licenses to their enterprise customers to access and use business-grade solutions Cisco Webex, Microsoft Teams, and Google Hangouts. These solutions enable administrators of online meetings and its users face-to-face conferencing calls, simultaneously view and share files, access presentation materials, and connect other meeting applications to boost productivity remotely.
Cisco Webex allows groups to host meetings, with up to 1000 participants, anytime and anywhere and can be used free for 90 days. On the other hand, Google Hangouts can accommodate up to 250 participants through easy access of any participant and can be used for free until July.
Microsoft Office teams also easily supports telecommuting processes to host meetings, share files, seamless videoconferencing features, and presentation of any Microsoft applications in the group meetings. Interested customers just need to reach out to PLDT to provide the free licenses.
“We know how business continuity is critical for all businesses, as we ourselves in PLDT are also in the process of adjusting our workforce and workflow in these trying times. Rest assured that our teams are ready to assist enterprise customers who would want to try and implement these solutions for their groups. Together with the country, we will all get through this stronger and better equipped,” said Hernandez.
To further enable access and support these safety measures to combat and mitigate the Covid19 outbreak, PLDT has also provided a speed boost to Fibr customers in Metro Manila and parts of Greater Manila — Bulacan, Cavite, Laguna, and Rizal — to help address subscribers' need to seamlessly stay connected and work from home. Wireless subsidiary Smart has also provided extensive solutions to address the surge in mobile connectivity.
In its continuous efforts to further empower and connect every Filipino, PLDT has been intensively investing and building out its network and backbone infrastructure in anticipation of a fully digital lifestyle. This is evident in its massive capital expenditure announcement of P83 billion to support growing data traffic and reach more homes with fiber to beef up its already extensive fiber optic footprint of over 322,000 kilometers.
