House approves bill for ICT hubs nationwide
Pangasinan Rep. Rosemarie Arenas. PHOTO from congress.gov.ph
MANILA, Philippines—The House of Representatives on Friday approved on third and final reading a bill that seeks to build information and communications technology (ICT) hubs in every district of the country.
House Bill 4926 entitled “On-line Network Establishment Policy for the Philippines” or the “ONE Philippines Act” is the substitute bill of the original one authored by Pangasinan Rep. Rose Marie Arenas.
The bill establishes nationwide interconnectivity among local government units in cities and barangays.
Under the bill, the Information and Communications Technology Office (DOST-ICTO) areas will be built in every legislative district where the ICT hubs will be located.
ICT Hub is defined under the bill as centers or locations that offer ICT services that has a minimum speed of 4 megabits per second (Mbps).
These may include telecommunications services, broadband and convergence services, business processing and data management.
The bill seeks to penalize violators with a P300,000 fine on the following offenses: non-disclosure, non-interconnection or non-compliance with the committed information rate and quality of service.
The bill seeks to solve the digital divide and set up a wireless communication technology in the country, Arenas said.
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