NTC Should Not Limit Daily Broadband Volume of Data

NTC Broadband

NTC

Local ICT regulatory agency National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) has announced that it’ll allow service providers to set a limit on the daily volume of data allotment in its broadband/Internet service.

This change was included in a information and communications technology (ICT) agency’s revised draft Memorandum Order (MO) on Minimum Speed of Broadband Connections.

The Bad News

Surely, this is not good for those who download huge amount of data including those who use it trivially for downloading videos. As an Internet professional who is active in this new media, I think that placing a cap on volume of data as a policy per se is a form of imposed limitation on the use of Internet.

When Tim Berners Lee established the public use of Internet around 1990, it was meant to give free access (not necessarily ‘use’ as per copyright) to the general public and share information over the web for the sake of knowledge and information accessibility. Placing a limit on this is just counter-intuitive.

The Good News

Nonetheless, there is also a good thing from the revised draft Memorandum Order (MO) on Minimum Speed of Broadband Connections. If there is a cap on daily data volume, telecoms  are also required to disclose minimum speeds and reliability.

Broadband service provider should specify their minimum broadband connection speed, service reliability, and service rates in their service level agreements, advertisements, flyers, and brochures. More details on the source here.

The NTC memorandum order was drafted with inputs from local telecoms including Wi-Tribe, Smart, Globe, and PLDT. It was also initiated amidst numerous complains related to broadband speed and services of telcos in the Philippines.

Online data exchange remain to be active in the Philippines with 24 million Internet users and broadband subscribers at about 3.6 million in 2009, up from about 1.7 million in 2008. Capping the daily volume of data will stifle the broadband industry’s growth.

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  1. Karl

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