The National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) has backed the passage of a bill that would classify broadband access as a “basic service.”
In a position paper, NTC Commissioner Gamaliel A. Cordoba said the passage of House Bill (HB) 5337 may just compel telecommunications companies (telcos) to provide faster Internet-connection speeds under the pain of heavy administrative fines.
“We express our wholehearted appreciation for the proposed amendments [to the law] contained in House Bill 5337, specifically in the areas of expanded responsibilities of the NTC, immunity from civil suit, reclassification of Internet/broadband as a basic service and specific rights for end-users,” Cordoba said.
The bill is still pending before the House Committee on Information and Communications Technology.
“The commission enthusiastically supports the good intentions of the bill [or the proposed Act Expanding the Powers of the NTC and Classifying Internet Service, including Broadband Service, as a Basic Telecommunications Service],” Cordoba said.
The principal author of the bill, Makati City Rep. Luis Campos Jr., in a news statement, said his proposal offers a solution to the country’s persistently slow, inefficient and expensive Internet access by fully empowering the NTC to regulate the service.
“Telecommunications companies in the Philippines are raking in billions and billions of profits from their telecommunication products including SMS and Internet services,” he said. However, the lawmaker added the quality of Internet connections rendered by the telcos is in a “sad and pathetic state.”
Despite the high cost of the services, he said, the Internet connections and signals are slow and unstable.
Currently, Campos said the 22-year-old Philippine Public Telecommunications Policy law treats Internet access as a “value-added service” rather than a basic service, and suppliers are relatively free to provide services on their own terms.
The HB 5337 redefines Internet access as “a basic telecommunications service within the jurisdiction and regulatory power of the NTC.”
Under the bill, the NTC may command telecommunications firms to deliver escalating Internet-connection speeds within prescribed deadlines, or risk paying up to P100,000 in daily fines that could last up to 500 days, or reach up to P50 million, for every instance of noncompliance.
The bill also grants the NTC and its officers immunity from civil suits with respect to any directives they may issue to ensure the performance of time-bound Internet- access upgrades.
“[It is] the duty of the State to protect the interest of consumers, including Internet users, promote their general welfare and to establish standards of conduct for business and industry, including the telecommunications sector,” the bill stated.
Moreover, Campos said the United Nations Human Rights Council has declared that all people have a right to Internet access in order to fully enjoy other fundamental liberties, such as the rights to information, education and free expression.
The lawmaker, however, lamented that the Philippines’s Internet connection speed has been rated the slowest in Asia Pacific by Akamai Technologies Inc.
Citing on Akamai’s State of the Internet Connectivity Report as of the first quarter of 2017, Campos said the Philippines’s 5.5-Mbps average connection speed pales when compared to Thailand’s 16.0 Mbps, Vietnam’s 9.5 Mbps, Malaysia’s 8.9 Mbps and Indonesia’s 7.2 Mbps.
Worldwide, South Korea has the fastest average connection speed at 28.6 Mbps, while Paraguay has the slowest at 1.4 Mbps.
Mbps is short for megabits per second—a measure of network transmission or data-transfer speed.