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[av_heading heading=’Internet for everyone, internet for everything’ tag=’h3′ style=’blockquote modern-quote’ size=” subheading_active=’subheading_below’ subheading_size=’15’ padding=’10’ color=” custom_font=”]
BY IKE SEÑERES
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Monday, March 6, 2017
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IT DOES not take a genius to understand that if there is internet for everyone, then the internet could be used for everything. It does however take a lot of brains to understand why internet signals in the Philippines are very slow, and yet it costs too much.
However, my friend Louie whom I think has a lot of brains says that internet in the Philippines is not really slow, but instead, fast internet here is very expensive, at prices that most people could not afford. Taking off from what he said however, we could actually say that since bandwidth is a commodity, it is actually possible for big organizations to buy on a volume basis, so that the eventual price would be discounted to a very low level.
Bobby, another friend of mine says that since connectivity is now the new lifeblood of the economy, it should be distributed like blood, meaning to say that everyone should have access to it when they need it, in much the same way that the Red Cross makes blood available to everyone when they need it, anytime and all the time for that matter.
Again just like blood, connectivity could be provided for free to the people who could not afford it but alternatively it could be sold to those who could afford to pay for it. This is actually just an issue of supply and demand, but as a general rule, affordability should not be the guiding force behind accessibility.
Noel, another friend of mine says that the technology should now shift from the now actual “Internet of Things” (IOT) to the proverbial “Internet of Everything” (IOE) later on. Certainly having a lot of brains also, he explained that the technology should now shift from “Machine to Machine” (M2M) to “People to People” (P2P), or even “Community to Community” (C2C).
Having a few brains myself, I understood that what he really means is that now and in the future, it should not just be machines talking to machines, but people talking to other people with the use of machines, or communities talking to other communities, again with the use of machines.
Leo, another friend of mine says that one good thing about IOT is that it does not have to depend on telcos, because there are many, actually too many non-telco frequencies that could be used so that machines could talk to other machines, free of cost, yes, without any telco charges.
Perhaps one example of this is the frequency used by Firechat, a technology that does not require telco connections, because all it needs is the built in features in most smartphones. In a manner of speaking, Television White Space (TVWS) could actually provide non-telco connectivity, not unless the telcos would again find a way to commercialize it, and eventually deprive the people of what they could actually get for free.
As it is now, the government is already implementing a program that will install free WIFI connectivity in the barangay halls. That is a very good initiative, and they should continue that. At the same time, there are many private companies that are now installing free WIFI in crowded public places such as bus terminals, hoping to earn from the advertising that could be placed on the wallpapers and screensavers.
Aside from that, there are many hotels and restaurants that have already made free WIFI available as a service to their guests. I have that these initiatives would continue, because at the rate things are going, it may actually become possible to have free connectivity for everyone, from everywhere.
As it has been going on, many shrewd companies would sell bundles that would include many freebies, but of course they could not hide the fact that the costs of these freebies are actually embedded into the total price.
True enough, there is some truth to the saying that there is nothing for free, at least for the most part. It now seems however that one or both of the telcos are now guilty of this low level deception that is only supposed to be the domain of the scum of the earth, the low life forms.
Practically saying that the data plan of a bundle is “free”, there is obviously something wrong, because the buyer has no choice but to get the data plan even if he or she does not need it, in other words the buyer is blackmailed into buying a bundle that he would rather unbundle.
It is not unusual for a street hawker or market vendor to be accused of short changing their customers, and in many cases they are charged in court and sent to jail. In these cases, we may just be talking about a few kilos of grains or a few bundles of bananas. In the case of bandwidth and connectivity however, we are talking about hundreds or thousands worth of promised internet speed that are not delivered, in other words commitments that are not met.
The truth of the matter is, the urban legend about load values being “eaten” by the telcos may actually be true, and what that means in the bottom line is we are paying for services that we are actually not getting and in any language that could be read as grand theft./PN
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