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NTC should probe Globe's broadband cap -TXTPower


Ayala-led Globe Telecom Inc. should accelerate investments to increase its network capacity instead of imposing caps on household Internet use to improve the quality of its services for subscribers, consumer group TXTPower said on Tuesday. The group called on the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) to perform its own audit of Globe’s networks to see if the company’s claim of network congestion due to some “abusive users" is true. “Globe Telecom… is not doing any good to the Philippines and its subscribers with its deceptively-labeled ‘Fair Usage Policy,’" TXTPower president Tonyo Cruz said in a statement. “Worse, it may be a convenient way to hide problems in network capacity, quality and reliability of telcos, which is an obvious hindrance to more widespread use of the internet and social media as an enabler for stakeholders in the country’s progress," he said. Globe last week announced that it would do away with most of its “unlimited" mobile and household Internet plans by implementing usage limits for subscribers. This would impose a cap on the amount of data that users can download in a day to around 1 gigabyte, or the equivalent of 250 songs. Globe claims that abusive users, who make up just 5 percent of their total user base, hog as much as 80 percent of all the network’s available bandwidth. This leaves 95 percent of the company’s subscribers to share the remaining 20 percent of bandwidth. However, Cruz contested this claim, saying that this figure is no different from that provided in late 2010 by the Philippine Chamber of Telecom Operators. “Both are at the very least suspect," he said. Cruz also called on the NTC to perform its own, independent checks covering usage, current network infrastructure and both ongoing and future investments to expand both reach and bandwidth capacity of Globe and other telcos. “Globe should be careful in referring to any of its subscribers as abusers… Those same abusers may actually be home-based online entrepreneurs, families of overseas Filipinos keeping constant touch or ‘netizens’ in the cutting-edge of surging social media in the Philippines," Cruz said. An NTC draft memorandum earlier this year sought to allow telecom firms to impose data caps, as long as they commit to deliver certain levels of speed to subscribers. The rules were drafted amid mounting complaints of poor Internet service delivered by local companies. Due to strong opposition from consumers, the NTC decided to delete the data cap provision from its draft rules. But there is currently no rule that bars telcos from imposing the same caps. GMA News Online is still waiting for Globe Telecom's response to TXTPower's statement as of posting time. — TJD, GMA News

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