SINGAPORE–As usual, being in Singapore has reminded me how unfortunate we Filipinos are when it comes to our information technology infrastructure.
Frankly, I don’t know how our telcos do it. I don’t how, year after year, they can get away with providing us with lousy service while still raking in money. While the availability and affordability of broadband has, to be fair, improved over the years, it doesn’t change the fact that what passes for broadband in the Philippines is laughable by the standards of other countries, such as Singapore. And forget quality of service — if all the horror stories we hear about the quality of broadband in certain areas are anything to go by, even when we part with our hard-earned money, we’re never really sure just what kind of service we’ll get, depending on which area we happen to reside.
So why do telcos get away with providing broadband services that are sometimes much slower than dial-up connections? Why are we consumers expected to grin and bear it if the service in our area is horrible due to some technical problem or lack of adequate coverage?
And to think of all the money they spend on glowing ads that tout how cutting-edge their technology is and how much they’re improving the lives of Filipinos. How many Smart Bro users out there feel like puking whenever they see those ads claiming that this service is the “broadband ng bayan”? Where exactly are these areas where Smart Bro actually has speeds that qualify as broadband? And if you’re one of those users who doesn’t get to enjoy these speeds, sorry ka na lang ba. tiis na lang?
You hear horror stories about all broadband services in the Philippines, whether it’s from PLDT, Globe, Destiny, whatever, that you start wondering if availing of these services in the Philippines is a crapshoot, a game of chance, only we keep ending up with crap.
So what’s the solution to finally ensuring that Filipinos won’t have to put up with shitty service? Is it finally time to get rid of the service area scheme, because quite frankly, I’d like to have as many choices as I can — if only to get the lesser evil. How much are telcos actually investing in their infrastructure?
It’s a pity, because we Filipinos do have world-class talents and skills. We can compete with the best of them when it comes to creativity. But unlike Singapore and countries more blessed than we are, we’re held back by private companies that keep dropping the ball when it comes to infrastructure — and a government that keeps letting them get away with it.
So tell me, who’s your broadband provider, and what’s your horror story?
June 19th, 2007 at 10:44 pm
Hi, Joey:
The problem is structural. Each Internet Provider has their own line to the Internet overseas and there is very little local interconnectivity.
In the early 2000s, ISPs saw the need to put up local Internet Exchanges–a good idea, except that every major telco wanted to put up their own Internet Exchange, and charge others for connecting to theirs.
As a result, we have several unconnected proprietary Internet Exchanges.
There have been several encouraging developments that offer hope for the bandwidth challenged Philippine subscribers.
1) PhOpenIX has been established as a non-profit, neutral Internet Exchange. Members share costs of operating this exchange, instead of having one owner charging everyone else to connect. At the moment, however, PLDT is still not a member of this exchange.
2) The Taiwan earthquake taught us some lessons within ASEAN: We can’t just connect independently to Japan and the US, we need to connect with each other and to points further on, such as Europe and South Asia. There are already several projects planned to boost ASEAN connectivity, following that embarrasing experience when major telcos were forced to connect through a medium sized ISP that owned a line to Malaysia. Only a a few weeks earlier they had been trying to squeeze that ISP out of the market.
3) Because we already have a neutral Internet Exchange, we can already have a Philippine Root Server, which will speed up DNS queries tremendously. It won’t speed up game play, but it works wonders for the web.
So, there is hope for the future, as long as we keep reminding the telcos that we don’t want to be merely connected to the Internet, we want to be a PART of the Internet.
June 19th, 2007 at 7:57 pm
Hello.
I am a physician working here in Singapore and I just came back after a 3 week vacation in RP.
It was heartwarming returning to my 100 Mbps Starhub Maxonline connection.
Most internet cafes I visit in the Laguna area, whether PLDT, Globe or Smart crawl along at 386 kbps, even less.
One of my neighbors on Smartbro had no internet connection for 3 days and intermittent connection for 1 week and he can not even get a rebate.
Even horrifying still is the fact that he is tied down to a 2-year contract he can’t get out of.
A reliable and cost-effective internet connection w/ excellent customer support is one of the perks here in Singapore.