BECAUSE the chronic traffic congestion in Metro Manila will take years to resolve—as these require infrastructure-related solutions—the information and communications technology (ICT) industry sees it fit for President Duterte to impose Band-Aid solutions through the use of modern technology.
According to a document obtained by the BusinessMirror, the industry—led by the Department of Information and Communications Technology and telco players Smart Communications Inc. and Globe Telecom Inc.—is keen on providing necessary tech-based solutions to help alleviate the effects of traffic congestion on both enterprises and employees.
Representatives from both the private and the public sectors agreed to adopt “a unified stance, wherein ICT-based solutions are seen as a key in resolving the problem of traffic congestion in the country,” the document from the Summit on Coordination Meeting on Implementing ICT-based Solutions to Mitigate Traffic Congestion Nationwide read.
One of the key initiatives that the partnership will undertake is the move to use a tech-based traffic-management scheme, which will provide synchronized traffic-signal prioritization schemes and real-time alternate routes information.
Likewise, the industry committed to install “broadband connectivity in major highways, roads and thoroughfares to allow commuters to access e-mail and work while on road.”
This, according to the document, will promote the culture of telecommuting, which, in simpler terms, is the method by which an employee does a task away from the office.
With this, the private sector committed to “seriously consider implementing telecommuting as an alternative-work arrangement for their employees, insofar as it may be applicable, considering the nature of their duties and functions, area of their assignment and the existing infrastructure in place, without unduly comprising work productivity.”
It also committed to assist the government in developing and providing identified tech-based solutions and infrastructure necessary for the importation of telecommuting.
The public sector, on the other hand, committed to create tax-based incentives for both public and private companies that participate in the off-site work arrangement, and to the “expansion of tax-based incentives in special economic zones, such as the Philippine Economic Zone Authority, to cover telecommuting.”
But to do this, the government must eliminate the bureaucratic red tape that telcos have been citing as the perpetrator behind their slow capacity building.
Hence, the government committed to help “remove barriers to facilitate and accelerate the expansion and improvement of the broadband infrastructure toward increasing penetration, last-mile connectivity, and lower costs for high-speed remote and mobile access through the Internet for telecommuting.
These include the streamlining of the required permits and licenses necessary for the rollout and continued operations of broadband facilities and infrastructure; the strict implementation of applicable laws, rules, regulations and orders on fast-tracking services; and the regulation and implementation of reasonable rental rates for where broadband facilities are constructed and located.
It also committed to allow telcos “reasonable but unhampered access and usage of public thoroughfares in order to implement their continuing expansion and improvements with dispatch and without undue delays.”
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Whenever these two telcos cooperate, customers should be worried. Until such time that they provide service on par with the rest of Asia, shall I start believing them.