Consumer Power!

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During my routine of checking my Yahoo! mail and reading inquirer.net, I chanced upon a news tidbit that caught my attention. It was about a draft memo circular from the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC). The circular was seen by some stakeholders in the broadband industry to possibly limit erstwhile laissez-faire transfer of data. I decided it was something worthwhile to write a blog on legal policy and ICT.

NTC issued the draft which was presented for public hearing January 10 apparently in response to consumers’ complaints of slow broadband internet connection. The draft circular, in principle, aims to ensure better internet service from providers by providing that:

1. “broadband service providers should specify the minimum speed, service reliability and service rates in their advertisements;

2. minimum service reliability should be 80%;

3. internet connection should be provided on a "best efforts" basis;

4. consumers should be informed of the service being offered;

5. service providers offering committed information rate (CIR) shall comply with NTC memorandum circular No. 12-19-2004; and

6. providers set a maximum volume of data allowed for subscribers per day.” [1]

The rationale for limiting data transfer (i.e., sending and receiving) is that there are users who abuse the internet access granted to them by hogging, so to speak, the broadband connection for commercial purposes. However, internet subscribers now argue that such “data capping” will be detrimental to them, as the en masse end-consumers of internet service. Whether the circular will be able to achieve its goal obviously remains to be seen (as NTC Commissioner Cordoba said, it is still just a draft).

In any event, I gladly welcome the conduct of this hearing (such a wonderful blessing of democracy: the right to be informed) and the ensuing discussion of issues and concerns from all stakeholders. Even this early, the rights, duties, and obligations of both provider and consumer must be clearly laid out on the table. What we are talking about here may be crucial to the future of Philippine internet policy and our constitutionally-avowed commitment to provide the public access to information. Thanks to the vigilance of internet consumers, the chances for possible abuse upon a later implementation of the said circular are kept safely at bay.

Universal access to information can be made real possible by the Internet (much the same what the Creative Commons founded by Harvard Law Professor Lawrence Lessig is advocating). [2] In this day and age, we must join the (online) community of nations in opening—rather than limiting or, worse, closing—our doors to information. I was trying to come up with a nice way to highlight the importance of information, and here is my syllogistic piece of effort: if knowledge is power, and information is knowledge, then information is power. Giving consumers access to information through the internet certainly empowers them.

Richmund C. Sta. Lucia, Post #8

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[1] News article by Karen Boncocan, “NTC Grilled by Consumers for Circular on Broadband Connection”, available at http://technology.inquirer.net/infotech/infotech/view/20110111-313872/NTC-grilled-by-consumers-for-circular-on-broadband-connection (last visited: January 12, 2011).

[2] Creative Commons webpage available at http://creativecommons.org/ (last visited: January 12, 2011).