"Let the small players penetrate the telecom industry."
"Let the small players penetrate the telecom industry."
If there’s one positive thing this pandemic has brought us, it is that it supposedly helped expedite the advancement of technology as almost everything now has gone digital.
Even the taho, our favorite morning snack, can now be ordered online. Ordering ramen for takeout through online apps, which used to be taboo then for hardcore Japanese food enthusiasts, is now also possible. Transportation services can also now be accessed online. This pandemic forced almost all activities to be done from home including work – except maybe for education.
As it is true that many schools, mainly private, have resorted to online learning, public schools have employed manual delivery of learning modules to their students for the simple reason they have no stable internet connections.
2019 statistics show that more than 95 percent of the country has access to electricity. And while 70.7 percent of the population have access to the internet, mainly through cellular data, only about 17.7 percent of the households have their own stable internet access at home.
The reason is that many small internet service providers cannot penetrate the telecom industry due to high spectrum users fee, or the fee they have to pay the National Telecommunications Commission for using government-issued frequencies.
According to Department of Information and Communications Technology Undersecretary Eliseo Rio, it is really impossible for small telcos to set up their own home internet services in rural areas as frequencies used for fixed wireless are charged the same spectrum user fee as those used for mobile networks citing the cases of mobile network operators Smart and Globe which pay up to P500 million per year on spectrum user fees.
Even lowering the SUF to a mere P50 million will not help as these small players only have 1,000 subscribers at the most.
To address the situation, a group of lawmakers led by Reps. Paul Daza of Northern Samar and Jose “Bong” Teves of TGP Partylist, have filed a measure seeking to abolish the SUF for telco players using wi-fi frequencies.
In their proposed bill, HB 8168, An Act Establishing a Zero Spectrum User Fee (SUF) Policy and Regulation for Philippine Telecommunications Companies Using Wi-Fi Frequencies or Spectrum, and for Other Purposes, the lawmakers said that while the it is recognized that frequency is a scarce public resource, it should be paramount that “the State shall administer radio frequency spectrum in the interest of the public and in accordance with international agreements and conventions to which the Philippines is a signatory. Towards this end, the government shall allocate the radio frequency spectrum to promote the adoption of appropriate technologies, an interference-free environment, best practices, and the highest service standards and shall assign spectrum to service providers capable of efficiently and effectively using it to meet public demand for telecommunications and data transmission services.”
They even cited the cases of the US, Australia, Singapore, South Korea, and Indonesia which implement a zero SUF for their wi-fi.
“The State recognizes the vital role of telecommunication in nation building and as such, it shall implement measures to provide communication standards suitable to the needs and aspirations of the nation,” the bill read.
As such, there is a need to “provide a solution in addressing unjust and unfair policy and regulation that levies an exorbitant Spectrum User Fee (SUF) for the use of Wi-Fi frequency or spectrum which is an open and unprotected frequency,” the bill furthers.
It won’t totally come free, though, as telcos will still have to pay for registration fees. Also, only duly enfranchised public telecommunication entities and the government will be authorized to use outdoor Wi-Fi access points or base stations and links, the authors emphasized.
Noble as it is, I believe lawmakers should see the urgency of the bill and pass it as soon as possible. Classes are about to start soon. Not only is the manual method of delivering learning modules to students time-consuming, it also exposes the teachers to risks of getting infected by COVID-19.
And as we strived to achieve herd immunity before the year ends, this method does not help a bit.
It’s about time we get the whole country wired. Let the small players penetrate the telecom industry.