Don Bosco Philippines South Province

A few years ago there was a discussion based on a glaring question: “why is the internet expensive in the Philippines?” What’s worse is that the cost is not commensurate to speed and bandwidth. It was a fair question since our neighbors in Southeast Asia have better connections than Filipino households.

I remember that government inquiry into this elbowed telecommunications giants into action. Regulators wanted more competition, lower prices and faster speeds. DITO was born to challenge PLDT and Globe. Converge rose up in the broadband market. In terms of legislation, we have reached a milestone in the “Konektadong Pinoy” law.

The main challenge in the Philippines is its geography. We are an archipelago. Unlike contiguous nations, islands like ours need to interlink with one another if we want a connected nation. This linking is both international and domestic. The Philippines has to have enough links to other nations for it to have a resilient internet connection. Its islands need to have a backbone and more importantly its own domestic network for better routing.

But links are expensive.

Undersea cables are super expensive. In fact, we needed government and industry cooperation to lay out additional cables to Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan and US west coast. Facebook and Google invested in this a few years back.

In terms of the national backbone, the administration of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo begun work on this, but that infamous ZTE deal broke down. For local players to shoulder this, giants like PLDT and Globe have to shell out gigantic CapEx. These two ISPs did follow-through but to recoup their investments they have to charge us for it.

With private corporations having their private networks as the backbone for internet communications in the Philippines and the inherent competition in this space, the links become more expensive because IP-peering is not free. IP-peering means opening up your own walled and gated subdivisions so that the highway can pass through your private properties (this is a limited metaphor for internet networking). In fairness to these companies, it would be unjust to ask them to build and invest so only later the public can have free access to what they worked hard for. You need toll fees to pass through private property.

This is one of their many contentions against the Konektadong Pinoy law.

I believe unless the government itself provides for a just and open backbone for the Philippines, our internet quality and price will not improve. I advocate for a multi-modal and resilient backbone, where islands are linked to one another in a web of optical fiber, radio, and satellite communications. This backbone should be a reflection of what the internet really is: a network of networks; and in the case of the Philippines, a network of networks from the government, academe, military and private businesses.

Disclaimer: This section of the website is a personal creative writing of the author and does not necessarily reflect the official views, opinion, or policies of the Salesians of Don Bosco – Philippines South Province. For concerns on the content, style, and grammar of this piece, please contact us.