NTC urged to crack whip on telcos

The National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) should address the practice among telecom companies of routing Internet data to other countries instead of using the Philippines’ own unified Internet exchange, Sen. Francis Joseph “Chiz” Escudero said in a statement on Thursday.

“The NTC should start cracking the whip and fix the system immediately. It cannot be ‘business as usual’ anymore. Let’s do away with the mentality of just accepting the present situation and start doing something about it,” Escudero said.

The senator cited the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) which, he noted, chooses to rout data outside the country despite the availability of PHOpenIX that allows all-local data traffic routing.

PHOpenIX, or the Philippine Open Internet Exchange, was developed by the Department of Science and Technology primarily to allow a faster exchange of data among users, Escudero said.

A PLDT spokeperson declined to comment Thursday.

Escudero earlier cited reports by global Internet providers Ookla and Akamai that showed how Internet speed in the Philippines was below par compared to that of its neighbors in the region.   The latest Ookla Household Download Index ranked the Philippines 21st out of 22 countries in Asia, trailed only by Afghanistan, when it comes to Internet speed.

“The problem is that government agencies that are supposed to monitor these telcos and help consumers don’t seem to feel the urgency of the situation,” Escudero said.–Miguel R. Camus