GMA News | Philippines | TJ Dimacali
UPDATED 30 DEC 2010, International rights lawyer Romel Bagares warned that the National Telecommunications Commission’s (NTC’s) proposal to allow data volume caps goes against consumers’ basic right to information.
In the latest version of its draft Memorandum Order (MO) on Minimum Speed of Broadband Connections, the NTC included a clause that, if approved, would allow telcos to place restrictions on how much information can be accessed by individual users on any given day.
NTC Common Carriers Authorization Department Director Edgardo Cabarios told GMANews.TV that local telcos are considering a daily per user limit of 5GB.
“There were apprehensions raised [by telcos] over abusive users. This [data cap] is meant to discourage unfair use, to give everyone a chance. The idea is to protect the majority of consumers,” Cabarios said.
He admitted that “abusive users” — including software and movie pirates — account for just one to two percent of Filipino broadband consumers. Unfortunately, according to Cabarios, such heavy users prevent the rest of the public from fully utilizing broadband connections.
….
