text:
“Nationalize the Telcos!”

costa-rica-fiber-optic-network-services news dot co dot cr

[Photo credit: Costa Rico News Co]

The National need

We read about the billions the economy loses due to Manila traffic congestion. I imagine the amount is a pittance next to what is lost due to the Philippine’s woeful internet speed and capacity.

Consider the government agencies and businesses still pushing paper. Consider criminal investigaton agencies that cannot connect with one another, or the fact that there is no consumer credit agency to qualify citizens for borrowing or link doctors and pharmacies to drug dispensing records.

Consider Filipino school kids who are still lugging soggy, tattered, historically incorrect textbooks around on their backs, not unlike child laborers hauling buckets of rocks up from the open pit mine, only our kids are trudging the farm-to-market road on the way to school. The rest of the world is getting connected, faster, better, cheaper. Kids tote tablet computers around, every piece of knowledge in the world available to them at the punch of the keyboard. Updated real-time.

Why are we so incapable, that we can’t do that?

I’ll slip into the language of the leftists, who often are on the right track (with the wrong machinery) and tell you why. Because of weak legislation that favors the entitled and the incestuous relationship between government regulators and the telco operators who OWN the rights to our kids’ well-being, privately. These huge, complacent, fat-cats, prominent among them the giants Globe and PLDT (Smart), hold the future of the nation in their Board Room hands and don’t mind saying “Tough luck, kids. You aren’t profitable!”

There is nothing in it for them to build the pipelines to knowledge for our kids.

Indeed, this article suggests the telcos are GAMING us, toying with us and our needs to suit their profits: Fact Sheet: The Globe-PLDT-NTC-DOST IP Peering Issue!

And the kids are only one slice of this failure to match national need and the delivery of modern services. Small businesses and large businesses are dead in the water when the telcos fail to perform. And they fail, day in, day out, with slow, limited, expensive services.

Government’s agencies still use pen and paper as a medium to record data, and the crooks seem to find the slips of paper that benefit them.

How do you define “backward” in 2015?

So, it seems to me, the National Government, driven by Executive, needs to take a very hard and simple look at this and say:

“This is not what we need, as a nation.”

“We need an internet infrastructure that competes, that serves . . . that works.”

Look, the Philippines can either continue to manage its bandwidth as a banana republic coddling the entitled, or as a driven nation, seeking the ways and means to compete and thrive. To generate wealth that serves ALL the people, especially the kids and businesses, instead of Board members who can’t stay awake during the meeting because they were down at Antonio’s for lunch dining their way to smug somnolence.

I mean, what do they really care about you, or me, or our kids?

We can judge the old fashioned way:

I appreciate Senator Bam Aquino’s ongoing efforts to get the telcos to do more by writing some new laws. But it simply is not enough. He is this nice man trying to converse with greedy power-barons of no national conscience. That description encompasses both the regulators and the telco operators. Bam is Mr. Nice Guy and what we need is rage.

No, we need one step beyond rage, which is a return to a calm, angry determination to do something about this. And do it now.

Enough of the negotiations and the bartering and the massaging of the vernacular to make it SEEM like the telcos are doing more, when they are not EVER going to do enough to get this nation off the dime.

Do I have to repeat myself to get the message through?

The telcos are not EVER going to do enough to get this nation off the dime.

They are not chartered to serve the nation. They are chartered to make money, and that’s what they do.

“It’s the system, stupid!”

Capacity . . . knowledge . . .  service . . . and wealth . . . are dead in the water. If there is more than one solution to this, I don’t see it. I only see one.

Nationalize the telcos.

Internet service is a vital utility. It is infrastructure, the way the nation will think and work from now to eternity.

Buy the telcos out. Form The Philippine National Telecom Corporation (PNTC), government owned. Invest in it and build it. This is the nation’s brain we are talking about, the synaptic connection of our minds to the information needed to think well and work well . . . and vote well. To run government agencies well, to serve taxpayers and take care of them, to help businesses thrive, and to teach kids on a plane competitive with the best of the best.

Why must Filipinos be natives forever? Why must we forever ride a broken down jeepney or in the back of a dump truck with bad brakes? Why are we not leading the world? The talent is here, the brains, the heart.

“It’s the system, stupid.”

So change the system.

This is not rocket science. It just means taking the future intellect of our nation out of the hands of private companies, who have different interests, and put them into the hands of professionals who can deliver bandwidth. Now, fast, huge. Hire Americans or OFW’S or Singaporeans to run the company, or anyone who can get the job done.

But get the job done.

Business argument

Let us just take a broad cut at this, a rough sizing on the back of an envelope. This will help us understand the business logic of the case . . . the practicality  of the solution. A financial pro could verify the general thinking and add some of the technical specifics. Suffice it to say, it would be a huge, intricate deal.

My original thinking was that the nationalization of the telcos (Globe and PLDT) would be a classic merger of two telecom companies (fixed-line and broadband) that, today, compete separately, maintain inefficient, overlapping networks, and provide poor quality customer service. The method I envisioned would be a forced sale of both companies, by legislation, that would require the National Government to pay shareholders of the two companies a “fair market value” for their shares. The surviving Philippine National Telecom Corporation (PNTC) would strip out duplicate assets and staff to pay for acquisition debt service and quality-of-service enhancements. Essentially, the Philippines would swap two under-performing networks for one high quality network, using the rationalization cost savings to fund the deal and make improvements.

Simple, eh?

Yes, until you look at the crazy market valuations of the two companies today.  Today, the market prices the two companies at about P855 billion pesos. Yes, almost a trillion pesos, or one-third of the annual national budget.

Globe, with equity book value of P57.5 billion, is valued in the marketplace at P326 billion (133 million shares at P2,454/share), or a multiple of 5.7 times book. PLDT, with equity book value of P124.7 billion, is valued in the marketplace at P530 billion (234 million shares at P2,264/share), or a multiple of 4.25 times book. Those are huge multiples. Tech multiples, where investors must think big payoffs are coming soon.

The business logic is not much different from what you would find in the merger of two corporations that are in the same business. Keep the best products from each firm, the best executives, the best processes, the best technology, and dump the losers. Cut expenses radically to pay for acquisition debt service and generate more profits.

We can do a quick and dirty eye-balling of the potential here:

Globe will likely generate annual revenue of about P120 billion this year, and PLDT will generate revenue of about P185 billion. That’s a total revenue stream of P305 billion. The goal would be to maintain this level of revenue in the combined company, and to increase it going forward.

Globe will incur operation expenses of about P70 billion in 2015, and PLDT will incur expenses of about P105 billion. That is a total operating expense base of P175 billion. Rationalization of staff, premises and equipment, and other duplicate administrative functions might generate a quick 5% in cuts during the first year. More aggressive cuts would occur later as cell phone towers and operations are sold to other firms or dismantled. We’ll peg expense cuts of 15% in years 2 and 3. That would be roughly P9 billion in year 1 and P26 billion in each of years 2 and 3. But at the end of the third year, the cumulative savings would be significant: about P60 billion annually.

All profits would be retained within the business to pay down debt or build capacity. Globe is paying about P11 billion in dividends yearly, and PLDT is paying P56 billion. That is another P66 billion in “savings”.

We could rough out the interest cost of funding P855 billion debt at 10% per year at about P85.5 billion per year. Given our operating expense and dividend “savings”, we have that covered. Most interesting. The deal works, even at the high market multiples of today.

Now, in reality, the National government ought not look at this strictly as a going business, but a way to build a data capacity for the nation that is unmatched in Asia. For example, kids in public schools ought to connect to the internet for schoolwork at no charge. The telcos can’t do that; government can. Building true infrastructure will require the infusion of additional capital to lay down fiber optic lines and make other enhancements to speed and capacity. These matters would require technological advice and investments that are beyond the scope of this paper.

What I’ve tried to do is make this very simple and very profound:

  1. The nation has critical need for better internet service. It’s the way of the world, in the future.
  2. Private companies are unlikely to build the kind of high speed, high capacity network required. They just can’t make the huge investments required and still return big profits to shareholders.
  3. The building of a single, large national data-services provider is financially practical at no burden to government.
  4. Building first-world speed and capacity will require additional government investment. This investment can be scaled to need.

257 Responses to ““Nationalize the Telcos!””
  1. Steve says:

    Nationalization doesn’t seem an answer to me; I don’t trust the Government to run the system any better than Globe and Smart. I’d rather see the sector opened to foreign competition.

    • Joe America says:

      Right. Isn’t that what PLDT is, within the limits of the law? Significant foreign holding of shares. They are playing it for profit with high dividend payouts. For a new company to come in and try to set up a new network? We are 30 years away. I’d set up a controlling Board that includes people you CAN trust. How else can the Philippines get AHEAD of the game? I’d work to solve the problems as they arise to deal with legitimate objections, such as the one you have cited, rather than give up on the commitment to world class internet for the nation.

      • Steve says:

        I would approach a Korea consortium and ask them if they are interested in competing, and find a way to assure them of full management control. I suspect they could be up and moving in a lot less than 30 years, and that PLDT would see the writing on the wall and kick their asses into gear to compete. No entity, privately owned or nationalized, is likely to deliver efficient service without competition.

        • Joe America says:

          Okay. Brainstorming mode . . . If it is 10 years, it is too slow, when the basic infrastructure exists already. I want high school students on the net for free in three years. I would inspire the competitive drive by setting metrics for access and speed and award huge bonus payouts to top executives for achieving them. I mean huge. But I’m not inclined to worry too much about what people think about that. More important is getting it done. This is Lee Kuan America talking here.

          • The Russian example proves that it can be done. OK Rostelecom executives may also be motivated by fear of Putin, similar to fear of Heneral Luna’s Artikulo Uno or Duterte’s bullet.

            Have DepEd set up the Philippine backbone for themselves together with DOST – later the entire government can use the backbone, and private ISPs, even firms or entire towns and subdivisions who want to connect to regional iXes – internet exchanges – pay fees to our envisaged “RepublicTel” to be able to route through – this is standard operating procedure all over the world, it would be a constant source of revenue for the government. Reduce PLDT and Globe to mere retailers, take their backbone and make it part of the Philippine backbone. Use the Southern Mindanao cables to Malaysia as alternate routing to the global backbone to increase capacity, lay an undersea cable from Palawan to Singapore as well and connect Palawan to the Visayan cable networks.

            • http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20150924006153/en/Internet-Society-joins-forces-Philippine-Department-Science#.VgfY2ZdCgdk

              things are moving already, similar to my proposals:

              the Philippine Open Internet Exchange (PhOpenIX), the country’s only neutral Internet exchange, launched a second neutral IXP in Cebu. The workshops addressed the principles, economics, and benefits of local interconnection, as well as best practices for sustainable IXP management. Highlights included a multistakeholder discussion on the basics of Internet peering and its local benefits, an Internet policy dialogue between key government and industry players, and a training workshop for Internet service providers (ISPs) and network operators.

              “We are at the dawn where true peering, which is the exchange between previously independent networks, will soon benefit the customers of each of these networks,” said Louis Casambre, Undersecretary of the DOST-ICT Office, at a recent Memorandum of Agreement signing with Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company, wherein the telecom giant committed to provide fiber optic connectivity to PhOpenIX. The government network component of iGovPhil, which will be expanded in different regions, will also help to provide fiber connectivity to the program.

              Administered by DOST-ASTI, PhOpenIX has a growing membership of Internet service providers, network operators, content distributors, and research institutions, and hosts services ranging from route server peering to transits for IPv6 networks.

              • Joe America says:

                I’d like to see a chart of how that works, and the agreements. PLDT is providing fiber optic, at what price/conditions? Most interesting. I’ve not really explored DOST management and structure, but know they have many, many projects in the pipeline. This does sound encouraging, if the profit predators re not controlling things.

              • http://i.gov.ph/govnet/ looks promising. Now anyone who is part of an IXP https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_exchange_point can buy volume from anyone else who is part of it via the border gateway protocol. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peering agreements govern how the different providers (GovNet and PLDT for example) bill each other for the traffic they exchange. These are the different possibilities:

                The relationships between these networks are generally described by one of the following three categories:

                Transit (or pay) – The network operator pays money (or settlement) to another network for Internet access (or transit).
                Peer (or swap) – Two networks exchange traffic between their users freely, and for mutual benefit.
                Customer (or sell) – A network pays another network money to be provided with Internet access.

                Furthermore, in order for a network to reach any specific other network on the Internet, it must either:

                Sell transit (or Internet access) service to that network (making them a ‘customer’),
                Peer directly with that network, or with a network which sells transit service to that network, or
                Pay another network for transit service, where that other network must in turn also sell, peer, or pay for access.

                The Internet is based on the principle of global reachability (sometimes called end-to-end reachability), which means that any Internet user can reach any other Internet user as though they were on the same network. Therefore, any Internet connected network must by definition either pay another network for transit, or peer with every other network which also does not purchase transit.

                Probably it will amount to smaller providers, companies and even cities being customers or transiting through GovNet, Globe and PLDT backbones, while the apparent Big 3 might decide to peer without settlement.

                Now if all three manage to give enough throughput on their respective “superhighways”, this would accrue as a benefit to all, like in the USA where the big Tier 1 companies (meaning those that can reach any part of the worldwide Internet without paying) usually peer because it would be too complex to manage the billing between them and hardly economical – but since Filipinos tend to think transactional they might not go that way.

              • Joe America says:

                Thanks for the education.

              • edgar lores says:

                Would the summary look like the following?

                o Tier 1 either (a) peers (swaps) with other Tier 1s; or (b) customers (sells). The customers may be Tier 2 or retail.

                o Tier 2 either (a) transits (pays) Tier 1; or (b) peers (swaps) with Tier 2s; or (c) customers (sells). Customers may be Tier 2 or retail.

              • Steve says:

                I stil suspect that the problem for most Fiipinos is not traffic on the superhighways of the internet, but the bottleneck on the feeder roads… the “last mile” issues. Without meaningful competition, there’s just no incentive for the telcos to upgrade that last mile infrastructure. There is also, of course, the issue of these absurd “unfair use policies” and the refusal of the companies to offer truly unlimited plans… that could in theory be addressed by law and regulation, but again competition would give better and more lasting results.

              • edgar lores says:

                The Australian roll-out of a fiber optic network supports the contention.

                One party, Labor, envisioned a pure fiber optic network connecting all the way to the customer premises. The other party, Liberal, compromised and envisioned a hybrid network where the last mile to the customer premises would use the old copper telephone line.

                Unfortunately, the Liberals won the last election.

              • Edgar: Tier 1 usually are networks that globally need to connect to nobody and can reach everybody. ATT, NTT, Deutsche Telekom, maybe even Telstra are examples of Tier 1. Tier 2 networks need at least one Tier 1 network to reach another global endpoint. All networks in the Philippines are Tier 3 networks globally, meaning they depend totally on Tier 2 and Tier 1 networks. They are not even regional Tier 1 networks.

                The connection to the home is also important, but the Rappler article I just posted shows that the superhighways are also important. An undersea cable that was damaged slowed down local internet in the Philippines because there is no sufficient Philippine backbone.

              • Apollo Dimayuga says:

                In New Zealand the network (cables, gateway, IX, etc) is owned by a single publicly listed company and the price they charge is regulated by the government (fixed ROI). The different ISP’s buy bandwidth on a wholesale basis and on-sell these to households and businesses. There are more than half a dozen ISP providers in this country of 4.5 M people and competition among them is stiff. You can have Unlimited Ultra Fast Broadband at 100 Mbps for the equivalent of Php 2,370/month.

                This level of competition came as a result of the government’s political will to force the dominant telco to split its operation into two independent entities: wholesale & retail. And from that point a number of new ISP’s came to market because of the presence of an even playing field among the retailers. And consumer preference shifted to who ever can provide the best price and service proposition.

                This is the same structure we have in the electricity and gas (lpg) market – power producers sells directly to household and businesses. Distribution is owned by a private entity that is regulated by government – the company just distributes electricity or gas at a fixed price, it does not sell. Again, competition is stiff among power and gas producers.

                My service provider has everything bundled together – electricity, gas, broadband and telephone service and the price they charge is far cheaper than getting it from individual providers.

              • Joe America says:

                An excellent model for the Philippines, I think. Thanks, Apollo.

  2. Karl garcia says:

    If telcos are nationalized the internet will improve,IT will improve the computers will remove bulk of the bureucracy,which is good.services will be good too.

    • Joe America says:

      I agree. The Telcos have a miserable service record, but a good record for high dividend payouts. What does the Philippine NEED to compete. I can assure you it is not Globe and PLDT..

  3. josephivo says:

    The immediate minimum we need is tougher government regulation and control. If we could start by just having to pay for what we get and not for what the Telcos promise. Why do I have to pay for days there is no service? Why do I have to pay for promised speeds not are not available? It is too easy to for the companies to double their profit by postponing investments and let the customers sharing the burden by throttling capacity.

  4. Yappie says:

    I couldn’t agree more Joe. I’m no expert, but I heard from an interview with NTC officials that Indonesia’s telco industry is run/regulated by their government together wih the private sector. It helps regulate market price through separation of the wholesaler and retailer, thus protecting the end-consumers. In the Philippines, we have 2 infrastuctures (Smart, Globe) controlling the entire supply chain up to retail. This means all margins go to them, and they still have the gall to provide us with poor service. Why? Because most of their margins go to marketing and their big fat paychecks.

    • Joe America says:

      Yes, and generous dividends to shareholders. A few years ago, PLDT paid out dividends equal to the entire year’s net income. The only way they could have done that is cash in their depreciation accrual, money that should have gone into building speed and capacity. These guys are the poster boys of manipulative greed, as you point out. I get ill watching their ads.

  5. It goes even further: https://www.reddit.com/r/Philippines/comments/2aurzq/how_pldt_deliberately_keeps_local_internet – but who is to say that a nationalized telco will be more efficient and care more than the PLDT? It might get bogged down in bureacracy.

    I would say liberalize even more: let the big sharks like ATT, Deutsche Telekom and the whale Telefonica of Spain which owns O2 among others bid to enter the Philippine market.

    That means a first exception to the Filipino ownership rule, but in this case it makes sense.

    And force the big players to make IXes – Internet exchanges – in all major Philippine cities, at least in Manila, Cebu, Davao, even better in Tuguegarao, Legazpi, Iloilo, Tacloban, Cotabato, GenSan, Zamboanga. It is terrible that all Philippine Internet traffic goes through the Manila bottleneck:

    • P.S. open the market to municipal utilities firms as well – this is something that helped over here in Germany, in places were Telekom(munists) were seen as unresponsive and slow.

      Private small firms that go straight to the major IXes and build fiber optics for subdivisions where you can expect many people to be working from the home office – and pay for it. I am sure that the housing companies might be interested in that lucrative extra businesses.

      If Joe is going leftist and/or statist now, my turn to go neoliberal, sometimes it is appropriate.

    • Joe America says:

      See my note to Steve. Even foreigners want to make profits. The idea is to cut out the profit “leakage” and replace it with a quality of service mandate. The mechanism for running the government entity can include foreigners, or whoever has the technical and financial capacity to assure top quality management. Just as the Philippines hired the best of the best for the UN arbitration filing. Solve the trust/management problem. Don’t give up because the Philippines has not been able to succeed in the past. Figure out a way to succeed.

      • Separate wholesalers and retailers like one other poster noted. Make sure the wholesalers provide proper trunk linke capacity, and increase competition of retailers.

        Foreign companies have the monetary capacity to make long-term investments, less profits in the short run and corner the market with better service without going broke, plus probably light-years more in terms of experience and professionalism delivering service.

        • Joe America says:

          That is an improvement over the current system. I’d simply argue that internet is too important to put into capitalist hands.

          From: http://www.futuristspeaker.com/2015/08/future-of-the-internet-8-expanding-dimensions/

          When we look at technological innovations of the past 1,000 years, the Internet is probably the one that has had the greatest impact on everyday life in developed economies.

          Cisco says that the number of mobile-connected devices exceeded the world’s population in 2014, so it’s safe to say that the rest of the world is not far behind.

          As the Internet expands, the impacts will be even more significant than what we’ve experienced so far.

          It will diminish the meaning of borders, and new “nations” of those with common interests will emerge online and exert influence far beyond the capacity of our current nation-states to control.

          An Internet-enabled revolution in education will spread more opportunities with less money spent on buildings and teachers.

          Major businesses and even entire industries will form, expand, and collapse far faster than ever before.

          Every business, every institution, and every individual will feel the effect of our every expanding Internet.

          But contrary to the way Hollywood likes to portray it, our future Internet is not Skynet. The Internet itself is neither good nor bad. It will be up to us to define how it affects each of our lives.

          How do we get AHEAD of this, when we are so horridly behind. By DOING IT.

          • Another scenario would be to nationalize the wholesale side that takes care of the infrastructure, even put it under DOST coordination because these guys usually do good work – Project NOAH and innovations like the AGT monorail and the roadtrain prove it.

            Have retail taken care of by local companies only, even housing companies in a competitive way. Let DOST build the national internet and gain local experience like when it build the AGT monorail and the road trains – it was a pain at first but is now paying off.

    • If international is not possible, let at least ASEAN players in, should be possible given the open market rules that are now being applied.

      Indonesia has two players with Tier 2 networks, buying capacity from Indian Tier 1 network, and inter-island experience of course: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tier_2_network

  6. edgar lores says:

    On the non-economic side, there is the technology side to consider, whether to predominantly use cable or wireless.

    Wireless speed is typically between 12Mbps to 25Mbps.

    With cable, fiber-optic speed would be between 12Mbps to 100Mbps.

    While wireless speed is improving, it will never approach the current and future speed of fiber-optic cables.

    South Korea already has a 100Mbps fiber-optic network. They are upgrading to achieve 1Gbps to complement their 4G wireless network.

    Australia is reported to have attained the fastest 4G wireless speeds in the world at 24.5Mbps.

    The Philippines is an archipelago. While a fiber-optic network can be installed in Luzon, undersea cables must be considered to connect the islands. Using wireless would obviously degrade speed considerably.

    Consideration must also be given to connecting phone towers using fiber-optic cables (?).

    Have there be any studies costing the laying of fiber-optic cable in Luzon? What about throughout the islands?

    This is a huge investment that requires national government participation.

    • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwave_transmission is the way to go – it has high capacity and is cheaper than putting up undersea fiber optics, you just need line of sight:

      • edgar lores says:

        What’s the top speed? I’m getting 10 – 22Mbps.

      • chempo says:

        Microwave — this jolts me back to my army days.
        Comment here just for some relief from the high teckie discussion.

        When the British pulled out of Singapore, they sold their entire military hardware — everything from barracks, vehicles, residences down to silverwares, to our government for S$1.00. Included in this package was a microwave installation (4 stations in Singapore and 1 in Penang, West Malaysia). I was manpower office in the Static Radio Relay Unit that manages the system. Within 5 years of taking over, the system was junked, overtaken by new technologies. Can’t tell you guys any thing of interest technically.

    • At least you need major PPP on this. One more piece of information: the largest global IXes are of course in the “developed” countries – USA, Europe, Japan, Australia, Russia I must note is strongly represented looks like Vladimir was thinking of the future just like Stalin – and then outside that you have Dubai, Brazil and India, wait Hong Kong is also represented but not Singapore which surprises me. This shows who are the big players with capacities:

      • And the Philippines has too little IXes, meaning that if you have a request going from Cebu using Globe to PLDT in Tacloban, it goes to Manila first, even worse according to all articles so far PLDT even sends the request to Hongkong first, then back to Tacloban.

        Which is why I was calling for more regional providers, they would have it in their interest to connect to one another and build many IXes, for example in the Visayas and Mindanao.

        http://www.internetexchangemap.com – just to give everyone an idea.

      • chempo says:

        Singapore does have an IXe. Don’t know why it’s not in that list

        • It is in the other global list of IXes I posted elsewhere in this discussion. It is NOT in the list of largest IXes, for whatever reason knowing Wiki they may just have missed it.

          I have been googling during the discussion, so my stuff is somewhat scattered.

  7. Karl garcia says:

    Do we need economic charter change?

  8. What’s the most professional Government Agency that deals with lots of money even indirectly? Why stop at Telcos? Oil companies, Transport Companies.
    If we can create a good system to keep government honest then we can nationalize the essential things.

    Or we can go the Singapore route. Private but with effective requlations.

    • Joe America says:

      I picked Telcos because the industry is moving so fast and the Philippines so slow, but you are right. Establish a management method that works, and replicate it in those industries that are knotted up in self-service.

  9. Bert says:

    I agree with Joe. Nationalize the Telcos. That’s the only silver bullet that would pierce through the hearts of those telcos blood suckers. NATIONALIZE THE TELCOS! NOW NA!

    Right now we are on the way to something even worse, if the DOST has its way. DOST has been asking for an additional P6billion to provide the masa with unlimited WIFI. I’m no techie but my take on this is that it will slow down some more my internet speed.

    But surely it will get more votes for the administration candidate.

    • Joe America says:

      Yes indeed. And then what about high schools. They should be plugged in asap. The volume coming down at the Telcos is huge and they will just game it for profit.

    • Of course WIFI for the masses will slow down your speed – if they do not build the information superhighways (Al Gore term) needed to carry the additional internet traffic.

      Like in traffic you have roads, highways, interchanges – I already detailed that there are too few and all in Manila, so to reach a computer using PLDT if you are with Globe you have to “drive” to Manila, PLDT sends you to Hongkong and then back to wherever.

      Plus I read somewhere in a techie forum that the TOTAL capacity of the “roads” leading into the international internet from Manila is only 2TB/sec, unconfirmed of course. Since most Filipinos access international web pages, I wonder how you can see anything.

      • Joe America says:

        Sometimes we can’t.

      • http://newsbytes.ph/2015/08/26/dost-to-roll-out-offline-internet-in-remote-areas-in-2016/

        they are considering “caching” to avoid increasing national traffic:

        The ICT Office of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) announced this week that it intends to implement in 2016 the “Offline Internet for Remote Areas” (OIRA) service as a component of the “Free Wi-Fi Internet Access in Public Places” of the government…

        “The idea behind OIARA is that much of the Internet is actually unchanging just like the words and pictures in a book, or gradually changing as we experience in our daily newspapers. Such information does not actually require bi-directional communication but merely an accessible ‘bookshelf or newsstand’. Considering that having such information accessible would benefit the people in the remote sites, it is our intention to establish a one-way delivery service to digital “bookshelves and newsstands” which is the OIRA Service,” said ICT Office executive director Louis Casambre.

        Casambre said the OIRA Service is envisioned as using a geostationary broadcast satellite covering the entirety of the Philippines with low-cost low-power caching servers fitted with appropriate satellite receivers and Wi-Fi access points to receive the broadcast signal and provide user access via Wi-Fi that would serve as the “bookshelves and newsstands”.

        • Joe America says:

          So wiki might be housed in cache and updated overnight kind of deal? Man, I get a headache thinking about how that would work. The sortingn out of what is cached and what is not . . . and how to sync it all . . . and storage capacity.

  10. Internet 101 below. Now like I wrote to Bert, you can compare the routes packets travel on to roads. Now the more alternate routes packets have, the better, which is why it is important to have as many IXes as possible between ISPs like Globe and PLDT, so you do not have to pass by EDSA, sorry I mean the “internet backbone” all the time. And of course the more capacity and alternatives the routes between islands have – see my posting on submarine cables, the better.

    IXes are Internet exchanges, now greedy companies will want to hog the traffic to get money from the others, which seemingly PLDT is doing while actually not building any backbone at all, but sending all traffic via Hong Kong which is totally crazy – their palusot as well see my link.

    • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_in_Russia – looked into this stuff, the company that did this (Rostelecom) is private but what they have been able to do is amazing:

      “n 2005 the Chelyabinsk-Khabarovsk Fiber-Optic Communication Line was laid-down which extends for 10 thousand kilometers. The minimum transmission rate is 120 Gigabits per second”

      “Until 2011 the backbone network in Russia was based on DWDM technology with a capacity of 10 and 40 Gbit/s. The operator started projects to expand the capacity of the Transit Europe – Asia transit line at two independent branches. Communication lines are under construction within a second phase of the TEA backbone “High Speed Backbone Transit Europe-Asia”. The construction of the first branch completed in 2011 (Khabarovsk – Stockholm). The second branch (Khabarovsk – Frankfurt) was completed in 2013. In addition, the expanded backbones are in the route of Khabarovsk – Nakhodka – Tokyo and Khabarovsk – Hong Kong, where equipment of 100G WDM is also applied”

      “in October 2007 then Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev announced that all of schools in Russia (about 59,000) were connected to the Internet”

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rostelecom – more information.

  11. neo canjeca says:

    I am now reading, winnowing an important seed for the presidential debate, to seek a promise better than nothing from any presidential candidate. These are bits too for induction into a generalization which will explain why human Gods with awesome corporate power turn into greedy evils of society. The resources of power are corrupted. Knowledge and goodwill as power are corrupted by money, greed and libido for debauchery. The search for reasons why, delays if not obliterates effectiveness of remedies against the modern corporate Al Capones .

    Search history for means to decapitate the hoodlums who manned these corporations will be the better off of the victims. It no longer holds, it’s messy and bloody to tar, feather, and quarter them by four horses. An Elliot Ness or Kim Henares back by vigilantes who can put behind bars past and present Gods of the three sacred branches of government could be the only lasting Christian solution.

    What I am now reading is about masked angels of the misrule of law; of the decades of corruption, and the shameless impotence of the NBI, the Bureaus of Customs and the BIR; the crumbling sand pillars of majestic Law, the insatiability of fat bellied media and the cluelessness of guardians of morals, enough repast for citizens vomit of blood. In the old west there were less of them after lynching and shooting the bastards.

  12. All presidentiables are routinely meeting with all businessmen of the country. After the usual speeches and the questions and answers, I wonder what these presidentiables are committing to these businesmen if and when they get elected, just to get their financial support. One can wonder, too if the voters are considered once elected, the profit motive is the normal main consideration for the business community, the taxes that will be collected from them is the fuel that will make the government engine run. So what to do? Set up another telco for the government and the schools and universities?…… open up the telco industries with proper regulation so that price fixing is prohibited and let competition be the driver to come up with better service, and offer the best option for the buying public. If the private sector is dragging their feet on appropriate investments, then government should step in so faster and cheaper internet will be available to the Filipinos which has long been available to other citizens of the world.

    • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_Internet_users – in the global ranking, Philippines is number 16 based on number of Internet users, but everything else – national backbone capacity, internet exchanges, throughput to the global backbone – lags.

      My idea was that DepEd connects all schools asap with help of DOST and private contractors, then the rest of the government uses this backbone as well, “RepublicTel” can then rent out capacity to regional providers, even cities or companies via regional IXes. My proposal includes forced buy out of PLDT and Globe backbone to be part of the RepublicTel backbone, which would need improved connectivity between islands, use the Mindanao-Malaysia sea cable and build the Visayas-Palawan-world connection for capacity.

      • http://www.dealstreetasia.com/stories/pldts-tie-up-with-philippine-open-internet-exchange-to-improve-countrys-internet-speed-11500/

        some movement:

        September 3, 2015:

        The Philippines’ largest telecommunications company PLDT has connected to the Philippine Open Internet Exchange (PHOPenIX), a move that is expected to help enable faster Internet speed in the country.

        PLDT is scheduled to sign on September 7 a memorandum of agreement (MoA) with the Advanced Science and Technology Institute (ASTI) of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) wherein PLDT will become third physical connection point of PHOpenIX. ASTI is the operator of PHOpenIX.

        On the same day of the MoA signing, PHOPenIX will be designated as the official G/IPX or Government Internet Protocol Exchange as per Administrative Order No. 39…

        PHOPenIX is currently the only Exchange in the local Internet industry operated by a neutral institution that allows the exchanges of Internet traffic in a free-market environment among local internet and data service providers.

        “These two events will ensure that Internet traffic to and from government networks will be transmitted efficiently and securely in compliance with Administrative Order 39,” said DOST-ICTO in a statement…

        Since last year, rival telco firms, several private companies, including some senators have been clamoring to the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) to force PLDT to connect to PHOpenIX instead to the Hong Kong Internet Exchange (HKIX) since the latter scheme makes routing data overseas and terminating locally to be longer.

        PLDT has also been reported to reject direct peering with telco competitors which critics labeled as a “monopolistic business practice.”

        Only recently, global Internet provider Ookla revealed in its household download index report that the Philippines ranked 21st out of 22 countries in Asia to have slow Internet speed followed by Afghanistan.

      • Joe America says:

        I’m starting to like this plan. The cost is lower, and the competition is laid across the backbone, which is run by “RepublicTel”. There is an elegance to it, in that the high capacity is assured, but competition is, too.

  13. Bert says:

    ““These two events will ensure that Internet traffic to and from government networks will be transmitted efficiently and securely in compliance with Administrative Order 39,” said DOST-ICTO in a statement…”

    “…internet traffic to and from government networks will be transmitted efficiently…”.

    Hmmmnn, how’s that gonna benefit us private ordinary citizen internet users?

    • The Internet exchange will benefit all providers using it, government and private.

      An IX in Cebu means internet traffic from the South going from Manila and back will be minimized, thus increasing the overall throughput. Another comment I made to Joe on that is in moderation due to three links I put in without noticing, it gives some more details.

      I researched a lot on ISPs, IXPs in the past few days, didn’t know much about this before – but I think it is important to look at it in detail, do the homework that others are not doing.

      • Joe America says:

        You are herein granted the esteemed title of Society of Honor Chief of Information Technology.

        • edgar lores says:

          Congratulations, Irineo!

          • Please try doing a tracert from oz for the following three destinations,

            then please post the results close the mine at the bottom:

            If Juana could do the same from the USA it would be great.

            And of course Karl from Metro Manila to have a comparison.

            Finally Joe himself from the Visayas – then I shall analyze traces.

            • PLDT home dsl

              tracert pdlt
              Tracing route to joeam.com []
              over a maximum of 30 hops:

              1 1 ms 1 ms 1 ms
              2 22 ms 23 ms 24 ms []
              3 23 ms 22 ms 23 ms []
              4 24 ms 22 ms 23 ms []
              5 22 ms 22 ms 22 ms []
              6 194 ms 194 ms 194 ms las-b3-link.telia.net []
              7 195 ms 195 ms 194 ms las-b21-link.telia.net []
              8 212 ms 261 ms 213 ms peer1-ic-309067-las-b21.c.telia.net []
              9 212 ms 213 ms 212 ms

              Trace complete.

              tracert dost

              Tracing route to dost.gov.ph []
              over a maximum of 30 hops:

              1 <1 ms 1 ms 1 ms
              2 23 ms 23 ms 22 ms []
              3 22 ms 22 ms 22 ms []
              4 25 ms 23 ms 24 ms []
              5 21 ms 22 ms 45 ms []
              6 36 ms 37 ms 37 ms unknown.telstraglobal.net []
              7 36 ms 37 ms 39 ms i-0-6-0-13.hkth-core01.bi.telstraglobal.net []
              8 41 ms 39 ms 38 ms i-0-1-1-2.hkhh11.bi.telstraglobal.net []
              9 * 39 ms 42 ms i-0-5-1-0.hkhh01.bi.telstraglobal.net []
              10 207 ms 206 ms 207 ms unknown.telstraglobal.net []
              11 198 ms 198 ms 198 ms
              12 223 ms 222 ms 223 ms xe-1-4.core-6504.pregi.net []
              13 222 ms 222 ms 222 ms

              Trace complete.

              tracert pldt

              Tracing route to pldt.com.ph []
              over a maximum of 30 hops:

              1 <1 ms 1 ms 1 ms
              2 23 ms 23 ms 22 ms []
              3 23 ms 22 ms 23 ms []
              4 23 ms 23 ms 23 ms []
              5 22 ms 39 ms 23 ms []
              6 22 ms 22 ms 22 ms []
              7 22 ms 24 ms 24 ms
              8 23 ms 24 ms 23 ms
              9 26 ms 26 ms 25 ms

              Trace complete.

              • Thanks gian! My first findings:

                1. You are using PLDT, obviously, your PLDT route is direct.
                2. PLDT transits to joeam via Telia Sonera, a Tier 1 ISP.
                3. PLDT is not yet peering with DOST – they transit via Telstra (Australian)

                With more of this, I will be able to reveal a lot of stuff about how Philippine telcos work.

              • ” e) Routing is a major aspect like I wrote in b) – I suspect that too much Internet traffic from the provinces gets bogged down on the way to Metro Manila. In Germany a lot of traffic goes via Frankfurt, used to be the main connection to the global internet, but IXes are now in all major cities and backbone providers like Hurricane Electric are everywhere. “

                Ireneo, so how will this change things over there (in keeping with your pro-Duterte stance, Silicon Gulf, Davao City), http://subseaworldnews.com/2015/04/01/sea-us-submarine-cable-construction-begins/ ( set to be completed by end of 2016 ).

                Will this new cable just be for this, “BPO is typically categorized into back office outsourcing, which includes internal business functions such as human resources or finance and accounting, and front office outsourcing, which includes customer-related services such as contact centre services”.

                Or, are there other less out-sourcing and more in-sourcing ( opposite of brain-drain, ie Heneral Luna-type stuff ) opportunities, and what are these in-sourced opportunities?

                Here’s my tracerts, from Socal. Looking forward to that article.

                C:\Users\Home>tracert joeam.com

                Tracing route to joeam.com []
                over a maximum of 30 hops:

                1 1 ms 1 ms 1 ms (redacted)
                2 9 ms 18 ms 8 ms (redacted)
                3 9 ms 9 ms 9 ms tge0-9-0-26.sntlcaga02h.socal.rr.com (redacted)
                4 10 ms 11 ms 19 ms agg23.chwocadq08r.socal.rr.com []
                5 18 ms 15 ms 15 ms agg24.tustcaft01r.socal.rr.com []
                6 15 ms 15 ms 15 ms bu-ether16.tustca4200w-bcr00.tbone.rr.com []
                7 26 ms 14 ms 14 ms 0.ae3.pr1.lax10.tbone.rr.com []
                8 14 ms 15 ms 14 ms las-b21-link.telia.net []
                9 26 ms 30 ms 23 ms peer1-ic-309067-las-b21.c.telia.net []
                10 24 ms 24 ms 24 ms

                Trace complete.

                C:\Users\Home>tracert pldt.com.ph

                Tracing route to pldt.com.ph []
                over a maximum of 30 hops:

                1 1 ms <1 ms tracert dost.gov.ph

                Tracing route to dost.gov.ph []
                over a maximum of 30 hops:

                1 1 ms <1 ms <1 ms (redacted)
                2 9 ms 19 ms 8 ms (redacted)
                3 10 ms 9 ms 8 ms tge0-9-0-26.sntlcaga02h.socal.rr.com (redacted)
                4 11 ms 11 ms 11 ms agg23.chwocadq08r.socal.rr.com []
                5 12 ms 15 ms 13 ms agg24.tustcaft01r.socal.rr.com []
                6 19 ms 23 ms 15 ms bu-ether16.tustca4200w-bcr00.tbone.rr.com []
                7 17 ms 15 ms 15 ms bu-ether14.lsancarc0yw-bcr00.tbone.rr.com []
                8 13 ms 11 ms 12 ms 0.ae1.pr1.lax00.tbone.rr.com []
                9 291 ms 426 ms 76 ms v217.core1.lax2.he.net []
                10 167 ms 171 ms 174 ms 10ge6-3.core1.hkg1.he.net []
                11 203 ms 201 ms 202 ms wificity-inc.gigabitethernet4-4.core1.hkg1.he.net []
                12 202 ms 201 ms 202 ms
                13 210 ms 202 ms 202 ms xe-1-4.core-6504.pregi.net []
                14 204 ms 205 ms 204 ms

                Trace complete.

              • C:\Users\Home>tracert pldt.com.ph

                Tracing route to pldt.com.ph []
                over a maximum of 30 hops:

                1 1 ms <1 ms <1 ms (redacted)
                2 9 ms 8 ms 9 ms (redacted)
                3 9 ms 11 ms 9 ms (redacted)
                4 22 ms 11 ms 14 ms agg23.chwocadq08r.socal.rr.com []
                5 15 ms 15 ms 15 ms agg26.tustcaft01r.socal.rr.com []
                6 14 ms 15 ms 15 ms bu-ether16.tustca4200w-bcr00.tbone.rr.com []
                7 57 ms 13 ms 13 ms 0.ae3.pr1.lax10.tbone.rr.com []
                8 13 ms 13 ms 13 ms []
                9 14 ms 13 ms 15 ms []
                10 32 ms 23 ms 23 ms []
                11 32 ms 23 ms 25 ms ae-6.r21.lsanca03.us.bb.gin.ntt.net []
                12 23 ms 23 ms 24 ms ae-0.r23.lsanca07.us.bb.gin.ntt.net []
                13 25 ms 33 ms 24 ms ae-12.r22.snjsca04.us.bb.gin.ntt.net []
                14 25 ms 25 ms 34 ms ae-36.r02.snjsca04.us.bb.gin.ntt.net []
                15 25 ms 26 ms 24 ms ae-4.r06.plalca01.us.bb.gin.ntt.net []
                16 174 ms 174 ms 182 ms
                17 174 ms 175 ms 183 ms []
                18 189 ms 176 ms 174 ms []
                19 175 ms 174 ms 175 ms []
                20 176 ms 175 ms 175 ms
                21 175 ms 177 ms 175 ms
                22 177 ms 177 ms 176 ms

                Trace complete.

              • Yes, the Davao cable will bring new opportunities – thanks. In fact that meshes with what I read on the page of a Facebook friend today – they are looking for Chabacano speakers in Mindanao to learn Spanish for call centers serving Latin America. Chabacano you may already know is spoken in Zamboanga and is a form of creole Spanish with simple grammar, but Chabacano speakers learn real Spanish quickly. The Mindanao folks may surprise the Luzon folks when given opportunities – they are unpretentious and pragmatic.

                Thanks for the tracerts – they show basically the same picture inbound as from Germany and Australia – especially that PLDT is, sorry to say, handling things very strangely.

                BTW Cayetano announced his VP bid from Davao and is having dinner with Duterte…

              • Not only for Mindanao– though good on those Chavacano speakers– but also its east of the Wallace Line posture should reap opportunities from the Pacific ocean facing side. Bad stuff’s going on in Papua New Guinea in their quest to modernize, the Cargo Cult’s still in play coopted by transnationals, maybe Davao and Darwin, Australia, will be able to bracket the lawlessness in those parts.

              • “BTW Cayetano announced his VP bid from Davao and is having dinner with Duterte…”

                So this means your boy’s running for President, right? If he does, maybe he can move Malacañang to Davao.

              • Looking southward makes sense – Australia is one place to look, the other is Indonesia.

                Filipinos and Indonesians usually get along very well, similar sense of humor and culture – and both don’t like the Malaysians who are often arrogant and influenced by Islamists.

                At Raissa’s I once suggested a Vietnam-Philippines-Indonesia alliance to ward of China – at least to be strong enough to defend until the cavalry comes, I mean US aircraft carriers.

              • “So this means your boy’s running for President, right?” no announcement yet. Cayetano according to the folks at Raissa may be looking at options, if Duterte doesn’t want and Leni Robredo says no to Mar he may be the next choice. But I doubt that scenario.

                Cayetano wants to move Departments to different provinces to decentralize the country, Agriculture to Davao. He has been to Davao frequently so I think they have their plans.

                Cayetano gives Duterte the legitimacy he needs for Manila and the clean-cut crowd that are a bit afraid of the saloon cowboy from the Wild South. Duterte is able to deal with Muslims in a way no one else can – he is talking to Misuari in the present hostage crisis.

              • sonny says:

                Education time on “tracert” for non-techies like me:

            • Joe America says:

              All my tracerts return “request timed out”. The joeam.com trace had 14 hops and the pldt.com.ph had 21.

        • This is really good stuff, Ireneo. Thanks, hoping you’ll expand this into an article and lay it out for those in gov’t, the private sector and the public.

        • karl garcia says:

          Start writing for the Society once more!

          • Joe America says:

            The door is always open.

            • If Society members help by contributing tracerts to the three locations I suggested in my comment to Edgar and post them here, I will analyze the traces and expose weaknesses in the way Internet traffic is being routed within the Philippines – MERCILESSLY.

              As a result, I will submit an article to you that is of the same quality as my BBL analysis – but this time in my real name. But I do need the prima facie evidence – traces to Philippine sites from Oz, USA and locally as well as local traffic to them and to joeam.com. Those posting their tracerts should mention from where (more or less) they are tracing and via what provider they are going – but please omit tracerts that only show timeouts…

        • Thanks Joe. You did the “Lee Kuan America” thing in one of your posts, I responded like the consultant or “solution architect” that I am by researching, analyzing and proposing.

          Like I do on the job, I looked for the most appropriate solution based on the parameters.

  14. i7sharp says:

    @Joe America
    “Consider Filipino school kids who are still lugging soggy, tattered, historically incorrect textbooks around on their backs, ….”

    Let me quote from an article published ten years ago (in 2005):
    She [head of DepEd] revealed that only 16 percent of elementary schools have the
    proper infrastructure to connect to the Internet. On the other hand,
    Hidalgo said, the DepEd is working with several private firms to
    provide both computers and interconnection to these schools.

    Among these firms are Intel Corp, Microsoft, and the Gearing Up
    Internet Literacy and Access for Students (GILAS), led by Ayala

    The National ICT Strategy for Basic Education is a five-year program
    that aims to connect elementary schools to the Internet and integrate
    computer-based teaching. The program started this year and will
    hopefully be completed by 2010.

    Note: “… will hopefully be completed by 2010”
    Aren’t we now almost at the end 2015?

    Where is GILAS now? Does anybody know?
    (At least, you still hear of, now and then, … “magilas.”) 🙂

    I can provide the original link to the article but it does not work anymore.
    You can find that link, though, if you click on this “secondary” link,
    (Hint: the original source was “news.inq7.net”)

    Since I “own” the site, RP-2, I hope this is not frowned upon as self-promotion.
    The site is old and neglected – but at least it is still “alive” and, from it, one can probably get more info about GILAS.

    btw, …
    just thinking outside the box,
    in what practically costs nothing today, even kids from the remotest barangays can have access to tons of knowledge (albeit mostly in plain-text files) at their fingertips:

    ODPC – One Drive Per Child? Would it work better and faster as far as kids are concerned?

    • i7sharp says:

      Even smaller – much, much smaller – is the microSD card

      OCPC – One Card Per Child would be even better?

      btw, I bought a SanDisk 64Gb dude two months ago – for about $30, yes thirty bucks.
      Which, if prices had not gone down drastically, would have cost me $6,400.00 – yes, 64 hundred bucks!
      You see, about years ago, one (1) GB cost $100!

      But a 2-Gb card or drive is more than enough for kids, for a start.
      This would cost about a dollar, i guess.
      One buck, If not offered for free – at may kasama pang kalendaryo.

    • Joe America says:

      That program, as I recollect, was making shared computers available. At the school near me, the computers sat unused because no one knew how to get them working or keep them working. I know high schools have computer classes available, but it teaches aptitude on word processing and the like. It is not “education on a tablet” where reading materials and exams are also taken.

      • i7sharp says:

        @Joe America
        “At the school near me, the computers sat unused because no one knew how to get them working or keep them working.”

        It is a “problem” that can be turned into “opportunities,” methinks.

        Let me pick up where I left off here,

        Frankly, when I mentioned of
        ODPC (One Drive Per Child)
        OCPC (One Card Per Child)
        I had also in mind old/unused computers – such as those that use 80286 Intel processors (I am not a techie – so please don’t ask me hard questions after this; I know only that they are old or jurassic by now.)

        I had also in mind one of the files that will/should go into the 2Gb drive or card. (Let us use 2-gigabyte capacity as an example).
        I am talking about the free version of a software that can run on old 286 computers.
        I have mentioned of this software more than once in the blog site but perhaps I should not, for now, name it again here – lest I be suspected of promoting it for my own benefit.

        Let me just say that it is from one of the features of this software that I got the idea to make a breakthrough in a project which had not been working.
        I was hired to try to make it work and was told that I might have as little as only two months to try. It is the company’s way of saying, I guess, that they will try another person if I prove to be overrated.
        (I think they had tried at least one person before me.)

        The above-mentioned feature of that software is what Wikipedia is availing itself of – in a big way, IIMMSM.

        Let me close this comment with a link to

        The files include, in one file, all the 37 major works of Shakespeare.
        It is a file that can go into our 2-Gb card/drive.
        It is only about 5Mb in size.
        Four hundred (400) of files this size will fit in the card.

        The Noli or the Fili is about 1Mb in size.
        Two thousand (2,000) of files this size will fit in our card.

    • Bert says:

      That usb flash drive, or that micro Sd, those are the small change. Not much value without the big stuffs. As Joe observed, the computers in the school near his place sat unused because no one knew how to get them working, or how to maintain its working condition.

      And so the pre-req for a more successful computer school program in urban and in rural areas goes like these: the hardwares, the softwares, the teachers who know computers, and the technicians to keep the pc running, . Those are the big stuffs and require gargantuan government funding.

      And then the internet connections. That’s the topic being discussed here in this thread.

      • i7sharp says:

        And so the pre-req for a more successful computer school program in urban and in rural areas goes like these: the hardwares, the softwares, the teachers who know computers, and the technicians to keep the pc running, . Those are the big stuffs and require gargantuan government funding.

        What say you of that, Joe?
        And the rest of what Bert has said.

        • Joe America says:

          I think Bert is characteristically accurate.

          • i7sharp says:

            Bert referred to your statement,
            “At the school near me, the computers sat unused because no one knew how to get them working or keep them working.”

            Can you please name that school near you?
            Also, if not asking too much, can you give more details about the computers?

            • Joe America says:

              No, I would not name the school as it might reveal my identity. The school received about 20 computers and no one was using them because none of the teachers was technically proficient on them. Plus, I don’t think there was an internet hookup.

              • i7sharp says:

                Can you name a school that would not compromise your identity but has the same kind of problems?
                It need not have internet hookup.
                The 2-Gb card I have in mind would work even in old computers (XT 286) that are not connected online.

              • Joe America says:

                Nope, that’s the only one I am familiar with. You should find a school to work with, perhaps, and make a striking difference in how they implement their programs.

              • Bert says:

                Let me help you, i7sharp. Here’s a school I know with the same kind of problems: Cauayan High School, Cauayan, Cagraray Island, Bacacay, Albay. Take a bus to Tabaco from Cubao, Quezon City. Will take you just a matter of 12 hours bumpy travel. From Tabaco, take a two-hour boat ride to Brgy. Pigkubuhan, fare is P75.00, one way. From Pigkubuhan take a land trail to Cauayan High School. It’s a 1!/2-hour trek on a winding undulating terrain 5 kilometers long, or, you can hire an outrigger paddle-powered banca for only P100.

                The school principal is Mr. Barcibal, but please don’t mention my name to him. May utang ako sa kanya.

              • i7sharp says:

                … Take a bus to Tabaco from Cubao, Quezon City. Will take you just a matter of 12 hours bumpy travel. From Tabaco, take a two-hour boat ride to Brgy. Pigkubuhan

                Am now packing!

                Please see

                “bert” is for you know. 🙂

                In case you have forgotten “i7,” please see

                “ja” is for … you know who.

                Given the above and …
                the proclamation, “The talent is here, the brains, the heart”,
                and your being “characteristically accurate,”
                the sky is the limit on what can be done farther.
                Or, siguro.

              • i7sharp says:

                Let me help you, i7sharp. Here’s a school I know with the same kind of problems: Cauayan High School, Cauayan, Cagraray Island, Bacacay, Albay.

                Bert, when you get over Joe America’s description of you (“characteristically accurate”),
                can you please verify the accuracy of
                “Cauayan” and “Cauayan High School” and that it is located in Cauayan (not Manito, by the way?).

                Perhaps the data you find here (downloaded five years ago) was not accurate?

                I cannot find “Cauayan” in it. But there are two barangays named “Cawayan.”

                I have stopped packing, for now. I want to make sure I don’t get lost. 🙂

  15. Karl garcia says:

    What If ZTE deal pushed through.Maybe they (chinese)could have beenour friends now.

      • Romania is getting really big in BPO these days, there is a major SAP outfit there, a lot of stuff has been taken away from Bangalore.

        It is also top-flight when it comes to the seamy side of BPO: internet sex chats and webcam outfits: http://www.vice.com/read/bucharest-webcam-studios-america-outsourcing-sex-trade

        And also high-powered when it comes to cybersecurity because Romania used to be the Warsaw pacts center for hacking against the West – together with Bulgaria. Phishing firms run by their Mafias compete with legit BPO in recruiting computer science graduates.

        • i7sharp says:

          “Romania is getting really big in BPO these days, there is a major SAP outfit there …”

          Here is what I found just now – as I googled for a particular info about Romania:

          “7 Reasons Why We Should All Be Moving To Romania Right Now”

          1. The internet is fast and cheap.
          When many people think of Romania, they think of horses and carts, orphanages and vampires. They don’t think of awesome internet access — yet that’s exactly what Romania has to offer. Romania currently has the fastest download speed in Europe. My service currently costs about 12 USD a month.
          [bolding, mine.]

          Irineo, you have any plans to move to Romania? 🙂

          Here is a Romanian blog site I came upon, also just now:
          “Christ for Romania”

          … the past Voice of the Martyrs Chairman [not Wurmbrand] for more than 20-years, committed suicide in April, 2012, only two to three hours after an accusation of child sexual molestation (pedophilia) of a 10-years old girl was formally filed by her parents with the local police, and while the Bartlesville, OK. police were searching to arrest him. This terrible event made world news.

          I cannot relate the latter article to “telcos” but I decided to share it here because I believe the ministry founded by Richard Wurmbrand and his wife will, despite the recent setback, will have strong positive influence in the Philippines.

          The Wurmbrands came to the Philippines in 1970 (I learned only recently) and distributed 5,000 copies of his book, “Tortured for Christ,” to the armed forces there.

          Who knows, Karl Garcia’s fathered might have been one of the recipients. 🙂

          • i7sharp says:

            “The Wurmbrands came to the Philippines in 1970 (I learned only recently) and distributed 5,000 copies of his book, “Tortured for Christ,” to the armed forces there.”

            I double-checked just now.

            Make that 50,000 copies.

            Source: FEBC (Far East Broadcasting Company)

          • Actually I was in Romania for longer stretches – sometimes one working week, sometimes two or three to save flight expenses – back in 2008-2009 when I had a project there, but only in Bucharest. Reason No. 8 to move is the beautiful women – a Latin/Oriental mix, many who look like mestiza artistas in the Philippines, but no I am not planning to move there. But travel there again definitely, the place is rapidly improving from 7 years ago and I did not get to see the countryside which is spectacular, only congested, lively Bucharest.

            What was funny is that I also got an offer from a top manager to find buyers for old sewing machines from a closed-down communist factory – everybody has sidelines there because the average monthly income is low and prices have gone up since they joined the EU.

            But then again one young man I trained on the project is now a manager at SAP Romania and went to Hawaii for his honeymoon – seven years ago he had a new girlfriend every two-three weeks but his heart has found a home now – so there are big earners there too.

            Some similarities to our folks in attitude, but there is a new generation that is fed up with the old ways and is living the new ways, many have worked in Western Europe or done projects there – or even just BPO – and are applying the lessons learned to back home.

            No, my home in Europe is Germany. I have been places but if I ever go somewhere else it will be the Philippines. Part of my motivation for being in blogs like this is that I want my old home to be a good place to come back to, not a place of frustration and disappointment.

            • i7sharp says:

              “No, my home in Europe is Germany. I have been places but if I ever go somewhere else it will be the Philippines. Part of my motivation for being in blogs like this is that I want my old home to be a good place to come back to, not a place of frustration and disappointment.”

              Munich, right? (Unless you have moved.)

              I live in the U.S. but my heart and mind is often in the Philippines.

              The God of the Bible can make the Philippines better than even the U.S. have ever been.
              Even with bad telcos. 🙂

              Perhaps before the Rapture?

              After the Rapture, things will be very, very bad but, who knows, God can make the Philippines relatively a paradise among suffering nations (among them, America?).

  16. Micha says:

    Manuel Pangilinan’s empire is into telecommunications (PLDT), power (Meralco), water (Maynilad), mining (Philex), TV network (channel 5), transportation (Tollways Management Corporation/Metro Manila Rail Transit System), and even schools (San Beda College/Holy Angel University).

    Almost all of these fall into the category of public utilities. In the hands of a private individual, profit motive trumps public service. In the case of PLDT, Maynilad, and Meralco, privatization does not always mean efficiency.

    Perhaps Pangilinan style’s himself as another Carlos Slim, Mexico’s telecommunication monopolist who is also currently the second richest in the world, an oligarch feeding on the trough of public utilities.

  17. Karl garcia says:

    On every change topic of blogs you can correct yourself.Before I am pro privatizatipn because of the bloated bureacracy.something is wrong.The oligarchs aint getting any competion. So I am now advocating for economic chacha.i just hope one day that no oligarch will have a seat in congress.

  18. “The talent is here, the brains, the heart.” JoeAm, I think you are pulling our legs. C’mon the collective talent is mediocre, that many of our so-called cream-of- the-crop work in call centers, that we are not even a good judge of character the way we choose our leaders – perhaps because the collective character is not good. How else could you explain that someone like Grace Llmamanzares- a virtual nobody in America – someone lacking depth of talent and character is seen by many as the next President?

    • Joe America says:

      I judge by the brains and heart and talent of Filipinos who contribute here, and they are stellar. Yes, the voting public does not think deeply and analytically, but that is true even in the US where simple slogans and ideas also rule. But I believe there are highly talented people about, and given big jobs and an appropriate management environment, they’d excel.

    • Karl garcia says:

      If it is not only about individual interests,we have enough talent if pooled together. You say they end up in the wrong jobs,things can still be done to change that. Pag gusto may paraan. Pag ayaw ang dami dahilan.

  19. Mariano Renato Pacifico says:

    “Consider the government agencies and businesses still pushing paper. Consider criminal investigaton agencies that cannot connect with one another, or the fact that there is no consumer credit agency to qualify citizens for borrowing or link doctors and pharmacies to drug dispensing records.” – JOEAM

    Consider these:
    1. Trillanes cannot connect internet to check if BinayLand belonged to Binay. Trillanes instead asked Tiu to present proof BinayLand belonged to him. Since Tiu presented authenticated notarized certified true copy of Land Title, TRILLANES HARASSED HIS FAMILY !!!

    In the US they have CLEAR and LEXIS NEXIS to verify if I was borned and raised in the US. If I have social security number. Where I lived before. What school I went to. If I filed for bankruptcy. Who lives in the household …. ETCETERA !!!! There goes my privacy.

    If we had goot programmers, coders, program analysts and FAST INTERNET, Trillanes could have pulled all the properties under his name or Binay for that matter. The Philippines have no goot programmers, coders and analysts. POEA and Central Bank stats are years behind. Why can’t they update their data? Each month they submit data to IMF and to their creditors. All of these are data points that can be had and entered in their websites.

    Even THEIR WEBSITES IS AS SLOW AS THE U.P. GRADUATES THAT ARE MANNING THESE AGENCIES. But they are quick to fill their pockets !!!

    2. I have three PHILIPPINE DRIVER LICENSES !!! One in Manila, One in Ilocos Sur and One in Maguindanao. THREE ! They cannot even know that I have three !

    3. These UP graduates cannot even know confiscated perishables, like, sebuyas, ajos, bigas, wagyu, etcetera in Bureau of Customs in their warehouse have perished: physically by magic and thru the elements !!! Yes, Virginia, do not believe Philippines is an agricultural country we import them because we cannot produce simple sebuyas. Naked a company that sells organic agricultural products import coconut water from Thailand, nothing from the Philippines. Our mangoes came from Mexico and Thailand. Durian from Cambodia. Yes, Virginia, we do not export agricultural products. If the PHilGov claimed they export agri products, I CANNOT FIND IT HERE IN AMERICA. I know better because I am into Organic food. Check out WholeFoodsMarket or Trader Joe’s Nothing from Philippines.

    Maybe they tried to import from Philippines, WHEn it reached the port, Filipnos increased the price just like Torre de Manila. Filipios think we are dumb. No we are not dumb. We are smart. WE use our Letter of Credit.

    4. The slowest of the slow are the Banks of the Philippines. My parents supply me a wad of checkbooks for my allowance. I deposit a check in the Philippines. Two days later it is debited against my parents retirement account. Does anyone here knows how long the banks credit the check to my account? ONE MONTH! UNA MES !!! EIN MONAT !!! They are siphonofores. TOTALLY ! absolutely! They suck it up!

    5. It is not only internet that is slow in the Philippines …. It took 10 years to build Torre de Manila … while it took two months for Chinese to build an airstrip in the middle of nowhere on a speck of rock. DOS MES !!! QUE HORROR !!!!

    THERE IS ONE THING THAT BEATS THE INTERNET EVEN IN THE U.S. ………. TSISMIS TRAVELS FASTER THAN SPEED OF LIGHT ….. THERE IS TWO AFTER ALL, Justice System is very fast in the Philippines …. Binay is already found guilty while deLima was still slowly gathering dusts on her evidences … I forgot, there is 3rd one: The population is immensely increasing more than they can smuggle onions, rice, garlic, Lamborghinis. The Philippines cannot even produce water because I see Filipinos sipping on Perrier .

  20. Mariano Renato Pacifico says:

    We could have faster internet if ZTE came into fruitation to build internet backbone. It did not because Joey de Venecia THE THIRD (why do Filipinos love numeric suffixes?) instead of wiring himself and carting photocopied documents HE WENT TO EQUALLY LOONEY NAIVE IGNORANT PHILIPPINE MEDIA run by U.P. graduates !!!

    Philippine Government subpoena ZTE. ZTE fired back, SHOW US THE PROOF ! Which Joey cannot present.

    What is weird and wild is Joey graduated in D.C., American University. His wife Annie Batungbacal from Princeton. Despite their ivy-background, THE FILIPINO BRAINS ALWAYS KICKS IN and throttle down to ignorance.

    Annie Batungbacal : Joey is married to Karen Batungbacal De Venecia who graduated as a chemical engineer from University of Notre Dame, and had her Masters degree in Chemical Engineering from Princeton University. Karen was formerly the Managing Director and Senior Country Operations Officer of JP Morgan Chase & Co. Currently the Executive General Manager of QBE’s GSSC

    Joey de Venecia de Numero: He graduated from the American University in Washington, D.C. where he earned a BS in Business Administration with a major in Accounting. He was a full-time research scholar at the Fordham University Business School in New York City where he earned an MBA with a major in Finance. He also taught accounting to first year MBA Students.

    BASTA PENOY !!! WALA ASENSO !!! Galing pa sa Amerika palpak pa rin.

    That woman who conjured “IT IS FUN IN THE PHILIPPINES”? It was originally a Swiss Tourism Slogan. She graduated from Harvard.

    Takot ako basta galing ang mga cabinet sa America …. These crooks knows Philippine Law is plagiarized from America. These crooks also know they run to PHilippine Media without evidences. So, they take advantage of Plagiarized American Law to COMBAT charges without evidences.

    • Mariano Renato Pacifico says:

      IVY-school graduate Joey could have gone to NBI. But he did not because NBI are manned by crooks, too !!!! There is no agency Joey can run to …. except Philippine Media. But his idea fizzled. Because Chinese wanted evidences instead of dal-dal ang pang-damays that Philgov cannot provide.

      Dal-dal verysus evidence? Who wins? In international court, EVIDENCE ALWAYS WIN. Even in Nuremberg, they asked for evidences when it is clear that Nazis did the pogrom.

    • Mariano Renato Pacifico says:

      I just wonder why Raissa and Alan and PCIJ are quiet on Telcos? Because Telcos are owned by ex-colonist Mestizo class. Mestizo class the carrier of Colonial Mentality are Honest. Therefore, Colonial Mentality is goot for the country not bad.

    • Micha says:

      Mang Mariano,

      It’s probably good that ZTE contract did not push through because the Chinese have proven to be such arrogant assholes in the international stage. US tech companies now want to go further west :

      • Mariano Renato Pacifico says:

        I agree. If ZTE did internet backbone in the Philippines, they’d have siphoned off “VITAL INFORMATION” from the Philippines. China been hacking left-and-right even in my country. I wonder what “VITAL” information there is in the Philippines worth keeping? Even Malacanang cannot have privacy at all.

        Filipinos hate America. Filipinos hate China. I wonder where the Filipinos go for technology. They even hate themselves. They go to “hated” countries to troll for jobs.

    • “China has the means, opportunity and motive to use telecommunications companies for malicious purposes. Based on available classified and unclassified information, Huawei and ZTE cannot be trusted to be free of foreign state influence and thus pose a security threat to the United States and to our systems.”

      Mr Mike Rogers delivered a blunt verdict to the 60 Minutes programme on US network CBS.
      “If I were an American company today… and you are looking at Huawei, I would find another vendor if you care about your intellectual property, if you care about your consumers’ privacy, and you care about the national security of the United States of America,” he said.

  21. caliphman says:

    The continuing poe legal saga. As I posted here before, Carpio is recycling the arguments he used in his dissenting opinion but which were ignored by the Suprene Court majority in ruling that FPJ was a NFC. This included stating the Constitution prohibits foundlings from being NBFC. Foundlings have the burden of proving they are NBFC. It might be true that the FPJ case involved NBFC status in the case of an illegitimate son and Grace Poe in the case of a foundling. For those who can discern deeper, the relevant legal issues are the same. The thing is Carpio’s arguments were not accepted by the SC majority then, but now that he can be the judicial majority at the SET, he has resurrected his rejected arguments in his version of a courtroom powerplay.

    • MY non-lawyer. laywoman’s opinion here is : FPJ’s case is that of a child of a Filipino father and an American mother, said child was born out of wedlock, but recognized, parents married later. GPL is a foundling, given Filipino citizenship by international laws, the SC will rule with finality later what kind of citizenship is that, natural or by operation of law. This non-lawyer will wait for the SC’s final ruling to enrich understanding of this national issue but will decide to vote based not on GPL’s citizenship or residency issues but on her character, experience and mostly on the kind of people she chose to associate with, who are mostly remnants of the past regimes, who contributed to the loot of the government money.

      • And I fervently hope and pray that our legislature would fast track the fastest and cheapest internet service up to far flung barrios so I could spread the word on Poe based on my last sentence above – my small contribution for the #never again mantra on the return of the Marcos, Arroyo and Estrada era.

        • Bert says:

          Mary, just one simple and innocent question for you, if I may:

          Would you be as hostile against Mar Roxas as you are against Poe if the Danding’s NPC and Marcos’ NP, and Erap’s should decide later to go with Roxas instead of with Poe?

          Curious lang, Mary.

          • Joe,I apologize as this thread is not on topic. I tried to relate it to the current one but as Bert has joined in, I will reply.

            Hostile is rather a strong word, Bert. I voted for Poe as senator as I have already stated. I wished she will stay in Senate where she is doing okay, or even as VP for Mar to hone her experience but she decided otherwise. Recent events are proving that I am wrong in my decision to vote for her.

            Experience and character will determine if a candidate can be influenced by people whose motivations are in question just in case they decide to hang on to Mar’s coat tails. Right now, they are riding Poe’s bandwagon and Poe, who is still inexperienced may not be strong or willing enough to give in to their future demands in case she gets elected as shown by her pandering to INC (for expected block voting) and popular sentiments (Mamasapano) whether it is right or wrong. Anything for the votes and popularity. That flaw decided it for me. It’s kinda like Binay whose Ilocandia votes for him made him announce that we need to forget Marcos’ atrocities and plunder, and to let him be buried in Libingan ng mga Bayani. (Is it true that Escudero is saying the same thing, knowing he is the son of a former Minister of Agriculture of Marcos regime?) So why are those people flocking Poe aside from her topping the survey polls? FPJ and Susan are close to their wedding sponsor (the conjugal dictator) which they share with Ricky and Rosemarie, if what I read is accurate. Those people want the good old days back, that’s why, and they know they cannot do it in Daang Matuwid which PNOY and Mar are espousing.

            In contrast, Mar’s public pronouncements show the opposite, so even if those people decide to support Mar, I have faith in Mar’s discerning ability to know what is good for the greater number of people and not for himself alone.

      • caliphman says:

        With all due respect, your lay opinion is not what Atty. Oscar Tan concludes in his article about Carpio’s using the same arguments in his dissent. This is the same conclusion that I reach in examining Carpio’s dissent opinion, Chief Justice Puno’s concurring decision, and were it not seriously disruptive of this topic, it is possible to demonstrate legally why many of the the same legal issues and arguments underly the heart of both cases, courtesy of Carpio. Its not easy reading and requires some unbiased legal acumen but reading the separate opinions of the Chief Justices who concurred with the majority opinion gives better insight of what the cases are about than using second hand souces. This case is not just about campaigning for Mar or for Grace, it is as Tan says, its about protecting the legal and civil rights of foundlings, who have been abandoned not onlhy by their parents but by countries such as the Philippines. This is why CJ Panganiban speaks out even if he is personal links to Binay, and why I speak out here even if I have not decided to vote for Poe. If other people believe in guilt by association and having their biases color their judgement, that is unfortunate but it would be a shame to not understand that this case is about having the Supreme Court set a precedent stopping the perpetuation of this country’s continuing injustice to foundlings!

      • caliphman says:

        Carpio said the burden of proof belongs to the candidate. “Any person who claims to be qualified to run for president because he is, among others, a natural-born Philippine citizen, has the burden of proving he is a natural-born citizen,” he wrote in his dissenting opinion.Carpio argued that FPJ was also unable to prove that his known Filipino father was his real father, which he said is important to verify in case of an alien mother.Do these arguments kind sound of familiar?

    • caliphman says:

      There is a a new reanalysis of Grace Poe’s NBFC status by Chief Justice Artemio Panganiban in his latest PDI column, probably prompted by Carpio’s unexpected ruling at the SET on the same issue. Joe’s blogsite does not allow two links per post but it is worth googling and reading because it is simp,e, logical, and definitive. Why is it important? Because along with CJ Panganiban, then CJ Hilario Davide and past CJ Reynato Puno, three of our mist brilliant jurists concurred with the majority ruling that FPJ was a presumptive NBFC and eligible to run for president, rejecting the arguments Associats Justice stated in his dissent opinion to support his decision to deny NBFC eligibility to FJP. Davide has maintained silence, Puno has publicly expressed his dismay that Carpio spoke his position prematurely, Panganiban countered Carpio with his current piece, and there has been an outcry among reputable legal circles for Carpio to recuse himself. What to expect? SET with Carpio’s prejudgement and desire to reargue and win in a decision he lost 4 years ago should triumph and Poe lose at the SET unless Carpio recuses or does a unexpected 180 degree reversal. If Poe’s counsel Poblador had any sense he would move immediately elevate the Comelec and SET cases based on Carpio’s grave abuse of discretion as soon as possible to have the SC try and reach a resolution before campaign season officially begins.

  22. Dusty Santos says:

    Again, Joe, you touched it with a needle. Many of us have been cheerful troopers far too long, forced to accept the same level of telco services that we have since the 90s and oblivious to what other countries have been enjoying. You also blogged about our need to have a working mechanism for consumer protection and this is just another example of how far down the $#!+hole we are. Blog pa more!

  23. surfer sison says:

    if the government is inutile to untangle this mess ,maybe a class action suit filed in the courts by like-minded citizens might do the trick.

    Let’s take our cue from Chief Justice Sereno who complained about the woeful state of our telecom services in a recent speech.

    “The Philippine Chief Justice has a shoutout to the country’s two major telecommunications companies, Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company (PLDT) and Globe Telecom Incorporated: act speedily and fix the “horrifyingly narrow and outrageously slow” Internet speed.
    “The Philippines has become the leading social media user in the world even if our Internet bandwidth is horrifyingly narrow and outrageously slow…. This is a negative shoutout to the two major telcos,” Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno told the audience at the 2015 Manila Social Good Summit held Saturday, September 26, at the Resorts World Manila.”

  24. wjarko says:

    According to Rigoberto Tiglao, PLDT is majority owned by the Salim group (better known as MVP Group). Most of their investment is in transport and telco infrastructure that has pretty much paid for itself without needing much foreign capital as most of the financing was done locally. Whats worse is due to the huge dividend payouts, these telcos are created outflow of capital from the country – according to estimates almost $8B in 10 years and no one can stop the capital from bleeding out because they have majority control. Just think if all these capital was reinvested in the country?

    Its also interesting since Mr. Tiglao has a different take on the matter, he implies that much of the inefficiency is due to profit voracity of foreigners controlling our telcos. Taking some of his ideas, I think significant stake/control through stock purchase from various government financing companies in telcos can significantly redirect resources of telcos towards developmental purposes. Essentially cutting out the profit-oriented foreigners and making telcos partial government-private owned but genuine government tools for development.

    • Joe America says:

      Right. PLDT has a substantial foreign ownership. British, I believe. Dividend payouts are generous.

    • The idea of a government-owned RepublicTel is similar to what you are proposing.

      There I was inspired by the German model of fully government-owned private companies.

      Government companies can be very inflexible. Deutsche Telekom used to be an inflexible government authority that prohibited modern modems made in America or even – god forbid! – Taiwan – partly for very strange reasons, partly because they still used electromechanical https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relay switches from the 1920s in telephone exchanges, especially those in East Germany. Germany was way behind in the early 90s.

      Private companies have the problem that stockholders want dividends. Government-owned private companies can be run in the modern way, but the sole owner can mandate that they reinvest, or even put in additional investment capital. So Deutsche Bahn which is the privatized, majority state-owned company does give out dividends to non-state stockholders, but the state does invest in new speed tracks and in new rolling stock.

      Stadtwerke München (Munich city utilities) is exemplary – 100% municipal-owned, they take care of water, electricity (even if they source from others), subways, trams, public busses, public heating and public swimming pools – the latter is a spin-off from public heating. They basically make sure the city has everything it needs, and even own M-Net together with neighbouring utility firms – an internet provider which layed down fiber optic cables to the home in the entire central area of Munich. Now there is a lot of competition in Germany when it comes to the internet – cable TV firms, municipal utilities and telecoms are in it, so in urban areas you have good speed – but strangely enough Romania is much faster.

  25. manuel buencamino says:

    Joe, Throw away the P&L statements. They cannot be used to measure anything in a huge forward-looking national project, a long term project with results that will show up elsewhere like better educated people, higher productivity rates etc. It’s like building a high speed railway…it may never make a profit as a 25-year business venture but seen in the larger context of national development the rewards are immeasurable…look at the US space project started by Kennedy…look at the high speed railways from Beijing to Tibet and to the far-flung western regions of China…or even the high speed rail from KL to the humongous KLIA…no immediate profits there no nice P&L statements but the benefits….

    • Joe America says:

      Yes, I agree. That essentially is the final point of the four ideas I wanted to conclude with. I mainly wanted to point out that such a transaction (merger), although huge, can be done at no undue burden on government, which has many demands for funding. I wanted to kill the “impractical” opposition. It is totally practical. But, yes, government should invest mightily to build “world class” connectivity.

      • They can always get back their investment by doing an IPO for “RepublicTel” as soon as the infrastructure has been built. And tax earnings will increase because internet speed is a major aspect for businesses to set up shop in the Philippines.

        What surprises me is that Philippine oligarchs are so unlike American robber barons – Carnegie at least made sure the railway lines from East to West were built.

  26. Bisdak says:

    If I may add. We have been there and done that. We have been there when Marcos (thru Martial Law and cronies) took over all telecom companies making it a monopoly. We have done that when Cory and Ramos broke up the telephone monopoly and allowed more players (pldt, globe, bayatel, digitel,etc.) and we have come back with globe and pldt buying out the small players and now having a duopoly. I think government should “snap the whip” and create (take-over) the national backbone either completely government owned (I worry though that it will be in-efficient due to bureaucracy) or co-owned with the private companies (just to ensure efficiency). It is really crazy that our email has to go to a foreign country first, when our email recipient in just in the other side of town.

  27. http://www.rappler.com/business/industries/172-telecommunications-media/107319-globe-ip-peering-arrangement – out in today’s Rappler issue: (have they been reading here?)

    MANILA, Philippines – Globe Telecom has called on rival the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company (PLDT) to open up its IP peering arrangement in order to boost local internet speed for all Filipino users.

    “An all-inclusive IP peering arrangement among major internet service providers in the country is still needed to boost local Internet speed,” Globe Telecom said in a statement released Sunday, September 27. (READ: New internet speed minimum: throwback to ’90s?)

    The statement follows PLDT’s announcement last September 7 that it would become the 3rd physical connection point of the Philippine Open Internet Exchange (PHOpenIX). (READ: PLDT promises faster loading gov’t websites)

    It also signed a memorandum of agreement with government agencies, which would allow most if not all government offices to be locally peered and thus improving their Internet speeds.

    PLDT’s arrangement with PHOpenIX does not require the country’s largest carrier to exchange traffic with other ISPs via the local Internet exchange however.

    Instead, the deal will only allow PLDT clients to peer directly with government websites through the PHOpenIX.

    “From a technical perspective, localization is optimization. Any amount of traffic localized will contribute to access improvement and cost savings. However, given that around 80% of access content is foreign, there is minimal impact on Internet speed. What we need is an all-inclusive IP peering arrangement among all Internet Service Providers (ISPs). Peering of PLDT clients with government sites won’t cut it,” Globe General Counsel Atty. Froilan Castelo said.

    The remaining 20% is local traffic – traffic originates in the Philippines and terminates in the Philippines. However, of this 20% supposedly local traffic, up to 70% is routed outside the country, such as in Asia, US and Europe, before returning to the Philippines, he added.

    Instead of getting routed directly between origin and destination locally, traffic is routed outwards through others networks, incurring additional IP transit costs, before the data is routed back to its target destination,

    This causes delays in data transmission effectively slowing Internet connectivity, Castelo explained.

    “Still, competition’s decision to connect with PHOpenIX is a step towards the right direction. At the end of the day, anything that will boost local internet speed is beneficial for the entire industry and we will be supportive of such initiatives,” Castelo emphasized.

    Maintained by DOST ASTI (Advanced Science and Technology Institute), PHOpenIX is the only exchange in the Philippine Internet industry operated by a neutral institution that allows the exchanges of Internet traffic in a free-market environment among local internet and data service providers.

    • DOST ASTI (Advanced Science and Technology Institute), Ireneo, I checked out their website, aside from loading really slow. There seems a lack of content. Is their online presence just lacking, but offline they are actually on the ball? Or is this whole thing still being expanded?

  28. caliphman says:

    I used to personally know Tonyboy C and many of the senior managers at PLDT. One of the most profitable sectors in the business was and maybe still is its long distance services. The biggest threat to it was Voice over the Internet (VOIP) alternatives and was one reason infrastructure investments to increase internet speed and quality were not exactly high priority items. Nationalizing and combining telcos may be opposite of what is required which is opening up competition in sectors where service offerings are seriously substandard and pricing strategies are oligopolistic or reflect inefficient or high cost structures. There are lessons that can be applied from the US experience with Ma Bell where its break up lead to increased competition, lower pricing, and lmproved service quality and coverage across the continent. Clearly the BPO and call center industry is not suffering the bandwidth issues and abysmal qualtity the public is suffering. This has to be all studied but is indicative that if the profit is there, the telcos can deliver.

  29. Bad Telco Guy says:

    Joe, I may sound biased here (working for a Telco company who the commenters here accused as the bad guys) but I don’t think nationalizing the telcos would work. Bringing in more competition is the best thing to do. FYI a third player from Australia is coming in partnership with SMC.

    1. We already have foreign nationals working for the company in high positions. Americans, Israelis, Indians, Chinese, Singaporeans you name it.
    2. I am not sure if there is even a government agency out there that does a good job. Ex. Government’s cybersecurity division’s head gave a talk after the guys from fireeye, Microsoft, and some retired US navy guy who is now in security who gave a very complex and interesting talk. It was so embarrassing. His cases are about people duped in online buy and sell sites, laptops stolen, etc. Now add the fact that the government is corrupt at every level. You accuse the board of just wanting profit, the ones below however are working hard to make things work and prioritizing better customer server. Imagine if you give it to the corrupt national government, every level would seek profit. We can’t even maintain our trains. How much more a network that is very complicated?
    3. Why just at telcos? How about other utilities? Why not nationalize all of those? All of those are bad and/or expensive and are crucial to ensure our countries growth. I still believe that the free-market model is what drives growth and innovation. Without competition, there wouldn’t be a drive to improve.
    4. I am not sure about your point on the tablets and the roads to school. The only responsibility of the company is to provide the connection and not the tablets or to fix the road. If the connection is really bad but the government really wanted to, they could have just set up a dedicated server and have one router per classroom that would connect the entire class if the signal is really bad. It doesn’t have to be 4G. This is much cheaper than setting up a BST.

    I do agree that the connections are really bad in some areas. I have been to other countries and experienced the internet speed and theirs are much better. I can bring up technical stuff but it won’t change that fact and most people reading this would probably disregard it anyway. I know that you have brought up that your connection in your area is really bad. I can’t do anything about it. As you have said, the company is only after the profit. There will be no investment on places that won’t earn.

    Also, I think I’ll be leaving this company soon. I was inspired by one of your articles in the past. As I’ve mentioned in my comment in one of your old articles, I put up a vegetable farming business and applied new technology, machinery, techniques etc. It is doing well, I have started with the first harvest and based on forecast it would earn 500k to 1M a year per hectare (50-100% ROI in a year IF no storms hit my farm). I’m planning to incorporate it in the future and provide more jobs, and alternative investment for my family and friends.

    • Bert says:

      Hi Bad Telco Guy. I am glad your farming business is doing very good and I am one with you in hoping that no typhoon hit it.

      Yes, I called the telcos blood suckers, I hope your company is not that, but these Telco companies are raking in profits in billions of pesos from the business while giving us poor internet users the internet speed almost equivalent to the speed in Afghanistan, ranking 21 out of 22 nations in Asia, second to the last. Afghanistan, of all countries, can you imagine that? They’re real blood suckers, I’m sorry.

      • Bad Telco Guy says:

        Thank you. Unless the company is non-profit, I believe all companies aim for profit therefore all are blood suckers. Name one good major service in the country that is not overpriced? (Electricity? one of the highest in SEA. Water – not drinkable, etc. What do they all have in common? Filipinos working in them) Im not saying it is right. Im just saying it is what is. The only way you can improve it is through regulatory or through free competition.

    • What’s your take on the Internet Exchange stuff up above, Telco Guy?

      • Bad Telco Guy says:

        I briefly scanned the first posts regarding it. It has some merits but it is only one part of the problem. Upgrading a network suited to SMS and voice to internet took us years (Costing $1 Billion on both hardware and software). Now we are tackling the shift of the usage to video/heavy streaming. The environment is changing so fast. We just finished putting up something and later find out that it’s no longer enough. Anyway, the idea is ok but would require a lot of work, expertise which the country lacks and negotiations at different levels and you can’t just “take” a telco’s network so you need a lot of funds plus a lot of time.

        • Joe America says:

          ” . . . you can’t just “take” a telco’s network so you need a lot of funds plus a lot of time.”

          If that is the attitude in the telco Board rooms, I’d suggest they sober up mighty fine quick, because they do not just have shareholder profits in their hands, they hold the well-being of the nation in their hands, and it is bigger than any company or group of companies.

          Can you imagine if, in 2022, the next president leaves office without having addressed internet speed and capacity and customer service? That will be a worse hell than Manila traffic.

          Indeed, I would imagine any incoming president . . . doesn’t matter if it is Binay, Poe, Roxas, Duterte or Marcos . . . will have a meeting very quickly, say July 15, 2016. At the meeting would be the President, VP, the head of NTC and DOTC, and the presidents of all telco companies. This would be the agenda, very short, because only one person would speak and then the meeting would be adjourned.

          The President thanks them for coming then says:

          “Gentlemen (I presume they are all of the male kind, a sometimes dense lot), here is the situation. You have exactly three years to demonstrate that Philippine internet service will be world class by the time I leave office. That gives you until July 15, 2019, to show that you hold the well-being of the nation that hosts your corporation to be as important to you as shareholder profits. If you cannot prove that we are well on the way to world class status by 2019, we will dismantle you limb from joint, because we ARE talking about national security and well-being here.

          If any one of you finds your Board believes this cannot be done, kindly let me know by the end of the month, and we will begin steps to remove your company from the Philippines.

          If any one of you finds another company is putting up roadblocks to your performance by hording or blocking your success, let us know, and we will remove the blockage.

          Thank you.

          Have a great day.

          God bless the Philippines.”

          • Bert says:

            Oh, Joe, how I would love to have a president with balls like that! No, I yearn for it.

          • Bad Telco Guy says:

            As I’ve said, it must come from the outside (competition or regulation). Removing the roadblocks would be great. Also, the President should also mandate the following:
            1. There shouldn’t be any delays (which takes months) in the approval when telcos are putting up cables/towers because telcos refuse to pay “lagay”
            2. Require owners of the best spots to let the telcos to setup there. The farther from the best spot the poorer the performance (wireless)
            3. Improve the infrastructure, it is easier to build a network when there are roads and bridges to begin with.
            4. build the best roads so that the roads won’t be dug up/repaired all the time damaging the fiber glass which would require replacement and rerouting promoting heavy traffic.
            5. Clean up the rebels that burn the stations when telcos refuse to pay “revolutionary tax”
            6. Stop asking for more fees (ex. Environment fees) before the telcos can build towers that will help the municipality/cities.

            • Joe America says:

              My drill sergeant in the army would go nuts with that kind of excuse-making. It borders on whining, really, diversionary issues to escape from the simple point that the Telcos are failing at bringing the Philippines into the modern world.

              • Bad Telco Guy says:

                Screw this. You guys crucify EVERYONE working for the company without knowing squat on what really goes on, the effort and the sacrifices. I bring in valid points that the country needs to address as well and it is categorized as whining. Did I reject the idea that the service is bad? No. Did I reject the idea of the president mandating the company to step up? No. I welcomed it. You guys can sit in front of your computers and say, dream whatever you want (even if it’s unrealistic) and feel a sense of pride on what you “accomplished” but at the end of the day only us inside the company can make the change. Instead of motivating me to prioritize better service over profit, you succeeded in doing the opposite. In your eyes, whatever we do is wrong. Might as well just earn more. Good bye.

              • Joe America says:

                Good bye. Perhaps our attitudes are shaped by the quality of service we receive. Mine for sure are, when I have trouble getting on line to respond to you except in early morning. Sorry, but it seems to me you reflect exactly the kind of attitude we receive when complaining. Excuses and disdain.

              • Bert says:

                Okay, Bad Telco Guy, continue earning more, and be always the blood sucker that your company is, :).

            • Dear Telco Guy, (no bad people over here for me)

              CIO speaking (actually I am doing it as a BPO service, pro bono, but I have the full mandate of the CEO, have honorably agreed to non-disclosure etc., so it’s the same) 🙂 :

              a. The CEO is pissed off because his Internet is very very slow. His time is very precious as he is the decision-maker here. His pushing for results is understandable.

              b. You are giving the reasons without suggesting solutions, not good if you are supposed to be a full-service solution provider to the People of the Philippines.

              c. Bert from Bikol is a key user of your system who is likewise not amused about the quality and speed of internet service on his island off the Albay coast.

              – re 1., 5. and 6. You have the following possibilities to deal with it:

              pay the bribes and/or revolutionary taxes and/or fees and deduct them from taxes

              if BIR says no, tell them it is the government’s job to take care of security, good governance and transparency, and that you are paying your taxes as a corporate citizen so the ball is in their park. If they refuse, get a good lawyer at go up to the Supreme Court.

              if you don’t want to do that, go the Eastern European way: hire a “security firm” with goons that will take care of things. Read Confessions of an Economic Hit man for more details.

              if you dont’ want to do both, file a complaint with the National Government. They should have people to centrally take care of those cases. If they don’t, hire a lobbyist to take care that they do. Political PR men do the job and are tax deductible, will go to Antonios for you.

              – re 3. and 4. adapt to the conditions. Put cables on masts if underground is not possible. What works for Romania can work for the Philippines. Don’t try to go 1st world straight-up.

              Coordinate (imagine Mohaqer Iqbal saying this in his thick Moro accent 🙂 ) with those repairing the roads so that you put your cables far enough from where they build. Usually underground cables in developed countries are secured by concrete shafts to prevent damage and are in the same shafts are everything else – electricity, water – so that you have easy access for repairs and stuff. If you go 1st world go really first world, guys.

              If you can’t put masts or underground cables, use microwave or balloons to bridge stuff.

              – re 2. you can’t always get the best spots, put more antennas, weaker antennas instead. This is just my common sense suggestion, I am not an expert like you, give me solutions.

              We appreciate your input, but I have the impression that your bosses must learn a little bit about corporate communication. It is possible to communicate these problems to the public, to have webpages that inform about current malfunctions as a service to them.

              It is possible for companies of your size to address issues to the government and for lobbyists to push to have them solved, damn even talk to journalists to write your side of the story so that the public knows. And not to overpromise if you cannot deliver stuff.

              If your bosses do not know these issues, then I ask myself – do you people in the front lines not have the balls to address these issues to management, and/or are your bosses not listening to what is happening on the ground? Or have I overlooked a possibility?

              Yours truly,

              Irineo Salazar, M.S., CIO, Society of Honor (via BPO provider IBRS Enterprise Solutions) 🙂

  30. chempo says:

    1. Is nationalisation the way to go?

    1.1 Existing backbone – preferred backbone : Why nationalise PLDT/Globe and takeover the existing backbone which is the cause for existing state of slow internet? Does’nt make sense.
    1.2 Nationalised entities have seldom proven to be profitable in Philippines in the past, nor has the experience of other countries proven otherwise. Same as what Micha pointed out.
    1.3 Govt accquisition of anything – land, businesses, etc is such a messy and lengthy process. You need to first clear the legislative hurdle — pass some laws. That’s gonna take how long? 20 years? I have mentioned elsewhere before, Philippines very often gets strangled by the laws. In this fast-paced world, the legislature is a big stumbling block to Philippines competitiveness.
    1.4 Best of the best employees — will the law recognise the workers civil servants? What is the status if a company is incorporated to run the business, will the employees still be civil servants. If so, the salary structures are regulated. It’s not possible to attract the quality of staff required for this business.

    2. Nationalise the wholesale part, privatise the retail part (per Irineo) :

    2.1 If I’m not mistaken, PLDT is the wholesale part, the rest — Globe, Smart, Sun, Bayantel etc, they are the retail parts.
    2.2 Make a lot of sense to split these 2 businesses. Many countries use this model (Singapore too). The wholesale part is capital intensive and unlikely the country can have 2 competitors. Economies of scale is required to lower the costs. So we make the retail end competitive by opening it to more players.
    2.3 But to nationalise the wholesale part is still subject to weaknesses in (1).

    3. More competition : Generally, more competition is good but for telecommunication there are specific hinderances
    3.1 Capitalisation is simply way too big to support economies of scale for 2 or more providers.
    3.2 There are national security aspects to consider.
    3.3 There are issues of socialised cost to consider, that’s something private enterprises will not contemplate as they are profit-driven. Thus our Joeam cannot get his classrooms hooked up to internet just yet).
    3.4 The rate of technological changes carries with it great obsolescence risks. Private profit-driven enterprises have their capex sync to timed write-down of their infrastructures. PLDT, having invested in their current infrastructure, is not going to replace everything with the best latest IXes or whatever. They will come up with mutation that enhance or work with existing backbone arrangements.
    3.5 Foreign big time players ? — Change your 40% foreign-ownership laws first. Again, how long is that gonna take? In economies which do not have very open policies, business get around the foreign-ownership by use of “nominees” or dummies. Big players from developed countries do not engage in this way of doing business. Wheeler dealers from lesser countries are used to this way of entering closed economies. Anthoni Salim of Indonesia apparently can work with Manuel Pangilinan for control of PLDT, Meralco, + others. (Strnage;y, it’s common knowledge, but nobody is doing anything about this).

    4. The Singapore way (as per Gian):
    There have been instances in the past where government intervention or involvement was necessary. The single most important point of note is that we have not cumbersome laws to strangle us. Hence the government can move pretty fast once a decision has been reached. A sort of modus operandi has developed.

    Basically, it’s — nationalise (buy out at market price), revamp organisation, put in / upgrade / replace infrastructure, set-up regulatory structures, finally IPO with government holding substantial (not necessarily majority) share holding.

    That was basically what happened for public bus transport. The government bought out several bus services that provided poor services. We now have one listed Spore Bus Services Ltd which provides excellent services. The Land Transport Authority is the regulator.

    For telecommunication, there was no nationalisation as the function was handled by the Telecommunication Authority of Spore. TAS was privatised as Singapore Telecommunication (Singtel) and listed on the exchange. Singtel is the wholesaler with all the telecommunication structures and the retail part bidded out to 4 other companies. When we eventually set up the IXe, a separate govt-own company was incorporated to own and run it. My guess is that the IXe was kept out of Singtel for business reasons. Singtel has to seek out it’s own business growth where it deems fit. It has since extended internationally and I believe it is a substantial shareholder in Globe. Infocom Devt Authority is the regulatory body serving not just as watchdog, but in the interest of the nation as far as the direction of telecommunication is concerned.

    • Joe America says:

      If being wrong is the way to inspire such an excellent dissection of this rather intricate matter, I’ve never been so proud of being wrong. Given the insights from the Chief of Information Technology (Irineo) and your own parsing of this, I’d say it is nonsense to take over the two fat and happy telcos, but it makes sense to focus he infrastructure development on the wholesale framework, and to make sure there is more competition in the retail component. It sounds like DOST is working actively in the wholesale arena, and that work warrants further investigation as to funding and comprehensive solutions aimed at NATIONAL need rather than corporate interests. I know as well, DOST has education/internet projects in the pipeline as well.

      I think I know where to turn for further inquiry, unless Irineo decides to go that direction with his own work. That would be to dig and delve into DOST’s programs.

      • chempo says:

        Joe another way to look at wholesale and retail is medium and service. One component provides the medium ie first mile and last mile infrastructure and everything in between. The other component bids for chunks of the medium and distributes the service to end consumers. A public entity for the infrastructure is better than a nationalised one but because there is a national interest aka security, social and economic objectives, it is imperative the government must have a strong voice in this entity. The regulatory body serves to ensure consumer interest is protected. But the govt still needs to play a role in infracture direction. For this reason the govt must have a substantial holding of the common stock of the medium entity. In Singapore we have very good tripartite relationship ie govt, business, and union which allows us to achieve lots of common grounds and maintain industrial peace without it being viewed as disadvantaging the bottom line

        • Joe America says:

          That makes a good deal of sense. Singapore has a mature vision of public service, and the need to cooperate to benefit the state and citizens. The Philippines seems to have a mature version of every one for himself, and to hell with the nation. My internet service was out all morning, until 11:00 am, and has been ploddingly slow since. So perhaps I am extra cynical today.

      • edgar lores says:

        The New South Wales (Australia) education department has its own fiber-optic network and has achieved closed to 98% connectivity.

        Students are provided with netbooks, which are stripped down inexpensive laptops that can connect wirelessly to the Internet.

        Students can collaborate and teachers can share best practices; videoconferencing is a standard capability. A Learning Management System (LMS) called eBackpack is in place. This is a cloud-based system that allows teachers to assign, annotate, collect and grade assignments and assessments. With home-to-school connectivity, parents can view upcoming and missed assignments, grades and feedback. Parents can also receive push notifications.

        The IT project is being done under the Digital Education Revolution.

        • Joe America says:

          Thank you for that real life case study of what I have been urging for many months now . . . EXACTLY what the Philippines needs to do to get to world class education.

    • Mariano Renato Pacifico says:

      Existing backbone is outdated as old as Aguinaldo Principle. Internet/communication backbone need to be upgraded. At this moment Filipinos need not be chooosy picky who to go to. American, European or China they’d imbed malware to snoop on secret information in the Philippines.

    • Mariano Renato Pacifico says:

      To nationalize means run-by-the-government, The Philippine Government, that will inundate it with inept, corrupt ignorant graduates from UP.

      I prefer the private sector nationalize it (read: monopolize) with strict government regulation set with mission, vision and goals. Because currently right now, PLDT/Globe is run by the honest mestizo ex-colonist class.

    • i7sharp says:

      @Joe America
      I know as well, DOST has education/internet projects in the pipeline as well.

      I think I know where to turn for further inquiry, unless Irineo decides to go that direction with his own work. That would be to dig and delve into DOST’s programs.

      I am able to read only a few of the comments here – not that I want to read them all – but after coming across, just now, of what I quoted above, I wonder if Joe America knows more about the Philippines that the other way around.

      I have just put out there what may generate … generate whatever will be generated. 🙂

      Oh, by the way, speaking of DOST, …
      Can DOST not do something about the problem of the school that Joe describes as “the school near me” in
      https://joeam.com/2015/09/27/nationalize-the-telcos/#comment-138797 ?

      I presume DOST knows of the school and its problems or Joe can tell DOST (if necessary) the name and location of “the school near me.”

      • i7sharp, please also take part in the collective tracert I have suggested below. Thx!

        • i7sharp says:

          Irineo, I think you already have many that have taken part.

          I would like to spend my time to think or speak more of the simple things we can do with what we currently have.

          If I may so point out, five years ago, at practically no cost, I was able to upload data to sites that exist up to now.
          The data was from a government source (NSCB) but no one seems to have thought of making it available easily and fast.

          I am referring to this:

          If necessary, I think I can create a database for the whole Philippines in hours. Something a high school student can probably do – after a few hours or days of tutorials.

      • Joe America says:

        I’m at the 97th percentile in terms of knowledge of the Philippines. Thus, I have surpassed about 97 million Filipinos, including my wife . . . still more work to do though. 🙂

        • Joe America says:

          ps, about 20 people in the Philippines know my real identity . . . including my wife. That means over 100 million have no idea . . . so your point is excellent.

          Also, I know less about you than you know about me . . .

          • i7sharp says:

            Joe America to i7sharp:
            “Also, I know less about you than you know about me . . .”

            Joe, who here really (I mean, really) knows you?

            Are you Ronald Hertzenberger who lives in Biliran?
            are you Ronald Hertzenberger who lives in Cebu?
            Is Ronald Hertzenberger even your real name?

            …. about 20 people in the Philippines know my real identity . . . including my wife.

            You are taking practically the whole Philippines for a ride.
            Tama ba?

            • Joe America says:

              And I believe most appreciate the ride. Doesn’t cost them a thing. They can read or not. Accept or not. I hope you do not choose to join the ranks of Primer and Johnny Lin who used this open forum for the off topic challenge of my integrity. It is a rather unseemly practice. You keep asking questions that have no relevance to the discussion but a lot of relevance to my family’s privacy and security. We are talking about telcos, and branching from that, IT in the Philippines. Kindly stay on topic.

              • i7sharp says:

                @Joe America
                You keep asking questions that have no relevance to the discussion but a lot of relevance to my family’s privacy and security. We are talking about telcos, and branching from that, IT in the Philippines. Kindly stay on topic.

                There you go again, Joe.

                Your familly’s privacy and security????????
                Let me repeat:

                Kindly enlighten us (the Philippines – minus 20).

                Regardless on what topic is brought up here in your sight, I try not lose focus on the good of my home country.

                btw, I don’t get it:
                Your family’s security will be jeopardized if we know more about you?

                Aren’t you craving for that Bloggys (or whatever) Award?
                (I presume you have taken precautionary measures already in anticipation of it. That mention of you in SONA goes a loooooong way. Probably.)

              • Joe America says:

                Argumentative. Off topic. Suspended 30 days. Yes, you don’t live in the Philippines and have not had NPA trekking through your home or neighbors firing guns in a threatening way because if envy aimed directly at you and possibly haven’t read about the American found dead at the bottom of a well or the recent kidnapping of foreigners (for the money of it) or the way journalists are murdered regularly because they write the wrong topic. Life is real here in ways that are not of your interest or concern.

                If you take issue with what I do because I do it well or have influence, do a better blog, just go for it. Put in your time in the slog house pounding out material. But kindly allow me to do my thing, for the issues, for my contribution to the Philippines. No need to fill my house with envy of the crab type. No need to tear my work and effort down or seek to remove me from the Philippine dialogue. No need to deal with personal issues.

              • “the way journalists are murdered regularly because they write the wrong topic.” Yep.

                In memoriam Steve Barreiro, my batchmate in Philippine Science High School, Batch ’82.

            • edgar lores says:

              I have to say you are way out of line.

              If you think that, why are you commenting here?

              • Joe America says:

                i7sharp is currently suspended and his comments will be relegated to some other space. This was his response to you which for sure has nothing to do with nationalizing the telecoms, and is a needless diversion of the discussion. It is all history now. He will reflect and adjust, or not.

                With all due respect (and I respect your efforts) but I must say you are “uncharacteristically laconic” on this matter.

                “if you think that, …”

                What do you mean by “that”?

                It is good to keep things short but better to do them
                as short and as simple as possible
                as short and as simple as precise

              • edgar lores says:

                “That” refers to the statement and question: “You are taking practically the whole Philippines for a ride. Tama ba?”

              • I’m enjoying the ride, even if we are stuck on EDSA and the Internet is very slow.

                The seafood Edgar has served us is delicious and so is Popoy’s budget cake.

                And if we get bored, we can watch AlDub and wave to our loved ones online.

                Iyong mga naiihi, doon na lang kayo sa tabi ng kalsada, huwag sa jeep ni Joe.

                Dahil kung nakasakay iyong dati kong yaya na Ilokana, sasabihin niyang “dugyot!”.

              • Good riddance. I thought , like Primer, we could flatter him into becoming a productive citizen of this blog. i7 did have a beautiful mind, but like Bobby Fisher became God-nuts. When he alluded to a “checkmate”, the green weenie in me just unleashed on him and that might have contributed to the decline of his comments since.

                But I do still miss Primer ( don’t think I’ll miss i7’s comments ).

  31. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/3/bc3ff85c-62d3-11e5-9846-de406ccb37f2.html#axzz3n24vWEqg – Telstra is planning to move in partnering with San Miguel. Globe BTW is already a joint venture between Ayala and SingTel, which makes PLDTs blocking access not so surprising.

    • http://subseaworldnews.com/2015/04/01/sea-us-submarine-cable-construction-begins/

      A global consortium of telecommunications companies, formed to build and operate the South-East Asia – United States (SEA-US) submarine cable system, announced the start of construction for the landmark project, the first to directly connect Indonesia and the United States.

      NEC Corporation and NEC Corporation of America are the system suppliers for the US $250 million project that is expected to be completed in the fourth quarter of 2016.

      The SEA-US system will link the five areas and territories of Manado in Indonesia, Davao in Southern Philippines; Piti in the territory of Guam; as well as Honolulu (on the island of Oahu), Hawaii; and Los Angeles, California in the continental U.S. The system will be approximately 15,000 kilometers in length.

      The cable system will provide an initial 20 terabit per second (Tb/s) capacity, with 100 Gigabit per second (Gb/s) technology.

      The SEA-US consortium consists of PT. Telekomunikasi Indonesia International (Telin), Globe Telecom, RAM Telecom International (RTI), Hawaiian Telcom, Teleguam Holdings (GTA), GTI Corporation (a member of the Globe Telecom group of companies) and Telkom USA.

  32. josephivo says:

    Again all these discussions sound interesting, but can someone explain why I have to pay for the days (1 to 2 days a month) when there is zero service? And why do I have to pay for promised speeds that are only available in a few 1/2 minute burst? Sometimes it takes minutes to send a simple e-mail.

    This has little to do with technology and a lot with plain and simple customer service. Friendly until you sign the contract after that you are just an irritating burden. Switching no option, both providers in the subdivision are equally unreliable.

    • http://opinion.inquirer.net/88125/the-pathetic-state-of-ph-internet

      To make matters worse, we are actually paying more for our crappy Internet connections than others with far better ones. MyRepublic, a Singapore company, offers 1 gbps speeds for the equivalent of only S$50 (around P1,600/month). In comparison, for a monthly fee of P1,899, PLDT offers published speeds of “up to 8 mbps”—and that comes with a 50 GB cap. Isn’t it ironic? Despite the higher standard of living in Singapore, its residents enjoy much cheaper—and faster—Internet.

      It’s not that fast Internet isn’t available in the Philippines. PLDT offers faster connections—but at a much higher price: a 200 mbps plan costs a whopping P20,000/month. Who are able to avail themselves of this but the ultrarich? Mediocre Internet speed is a problem that disproportionately affects the poor and the middle class.

      P1899 is around 38 Euros per month – more than most telecoms firms charge in Europe for much faster speeds. P20,000 is around 400 Euros per month – exorbitant for 200 MB/s. If you ask me, the telecoms firms probably do not have that much total capacity to go around. By the laws of supply and demand plus their being a duopoly, they can ask for premium prices and probably are – for big businesses and BPO firms.

      In fact it is interesting to look to where Globe built its three fiber optic undersea cables within the Philippines – to Palawan, Coron and Boracay, probably because there are customers there – the big tourist resorts – willing to pay premium prices for high speed.

    • Joe America says:

      You’d have to address that to the fat-cats, I think. Many of us share your pain. I’d add another complaint. They call their monthly pre-paid service a “promo”, which gives them license to jerk people around without due notice. It is a “promo” that has been around for years. Which by my lawyerly eyes makes it a service, not a promo.

    • chempopo says:

      You have my sympathy. But 1 or 2 days not so bad. Once I had to pay for 2 weeks destiny cable when they were having technical problems which was non of my business. Considering the time and bother for me to call them or lodge a protest to the 250 pesos paid for the 2 weeks no service, I just sulked for a couple of days.

  33. http://www.yugatech.com/telecoms/all-the-9-internet-service-providers-to-choose-from/

    There a lot more smaller players scattered across the country. One that’s been in our radar for some time is ICT Converge which has been offering fiber internet starting at 6Mbps (1Mbps CIR guaranteed) for Php2,600 right up to 100Mbps. However, they still have limited coverage in Metro Manila, Bataan, Pampanga, Tarlac and Bulacan.

    While the top 2 are the biggest players in the market, there is a lot of opportunities for the 3rd to the 7th players. That’s not counting the smaller ones that may just need a sizeable investment to grow and scale.

    • http://www.omgeek.net/content/convergeict

      Speed & Latency of Converge ICT vs other ISPs

      After seeing the technicians out, I hurriedly went back upstairs to check on my connection. I was both anxious and excited to check out the speed as well as the latency to Singapore, since most of the servers we play with the OMGeeks are located there. As expected, the download speeds were holding up pretty well, hitting at about 9.4mbps on average. What got me by surprise were the upload speeds which were pretty much the same as my download speeds.

      Oh what a relief this will be when I have to upload videos on Youtube! Pings to the OMGeek Teamspeak server, which is located in SG, was holding at around 60-65ms! Just to compare, I previously got 180-200ms with Globe.

      Lastly, I wanted to also check pings to the big two ISPs, Globe and PLDT and lo and behold, I was pleasantly surprised again that both ISPs pinged >10ms! As I wrote before, peering between the big two have been really really bad because PLDT won’t play ball for domestic peering. For some reason, Converge ICT was able to find a middle ground for both ISPs. Have I really found the perfect ISP here in the Philippines?
      Reliability & After sales

      After a month passed, Converge ICT was proved to be really rock solid. Even during a period where there was heavy rains, the connection was still stable. Pings to Singapore, PLDT and Globe, still remained the same. I happened to experience a total of two separate occasions where my connection went down. The first time was a maintenance issue since they were doing some upgrades on their back end. I was surprised to receive a text message days in advance that this will happen. The maintenance lasted the morning until late afternoon, so when I got back home from the office, I was pleased that the connection was up and running and there were no problems.

      The second time that my connection was down, there was no planned maintenance and I panicked a little inside. So I called the support number (which was stickered on the modem) and after a few rings, a human being picked up the call. It wasn’t a machine to tell you to press so and so numbers to report your problem. Or an annoying theme song singing back to you on an endless loop. Nope. It was a human being!

      I told her my problem and the operator asked for my contact details and she assured me someone will call back. 20 minutes after, someone actually did and we went through some basic troubleshooting actions (restarting the modem, plugging directly to the modem). After all that failed, he said he will check on their back end and will call me within the day. When I heard this, I assumed the worst and planned to call them back tonight when I get back from the office if my connection was still down. A few hours later, that same person (sorry I wasn’t able to catch his name), called back and updated the status of my connection and said that there was something wrong with the outdoor box that was affecting my connection and they are sending some people to fix it now. A few more hours after that call, the tech called back to ask if my connection was up since the repairs were completed already. Unfortunately I wasn’t home yet to confirm if it was really up. So the tech said he will leave a number for me to text in case the connection was still down when I went home and somebody will call if ever it still was.

      If I would have to complain, it’s their modems are huge!

      That same night, when I finally came home, I anxiously checked my connection if it was up and with a bit of dread, it was still down. So I texted the number that was given to me earlier and I reported that my connection was still down. A few minutes after, somebody called back and asked me if I had restarted my modem. With a face-palm action, I followed his suggestion and everything was back up and running again. I thanked him and said everything was finally okay.

      My whole customer support experience was surprisingly refreshing and painless. There was no waiting on the phone for an operator to answer and there was constant communication with me on what’s happening with my connection. I’m not left in the dark, nor left frustrated that I can’t get my issues resolved. I genuinely want to applaud their customer service team as they really make me, as a subscriber, feel appreciated and very taken cared of.

      All in all, I’m pretty happy with the service I am receiving from Converge ICT. We’re all tired with poor reliability, speed and peering from the big two ISPs, at least now we have finally have the best option that’s available to us now in the Philippines.

    • Joe America says:

      That’s an interesting site, if one wished company in one’s complaint. I hope they eventually hire a couple of cracker-jack attorneys to start suing people and making big money for the people running the site and legal enterprise. Right now, it does not appear to go anywhere.

  34. Chivas says:

    Imagine for a month there will be 10 gigabytes per second for over a month on PH coming from a merciful multiverse.

    All freelance agents can make money(efficient virtual drop-shipping), working from home.

    It means a lot because of better family time and less spending time on cryogenic buses.

    A huge reduction in gas consumption(a reduction of all travel because you understand having a wedding on Boracay is so original), reduction on going malls, reduction on going to restos and expensive pizzas, a reduction on going hotels,reduction on buying cars,reduction on BPO kissing asses,,a reduction on watching TV shows for monkeys.

    Suddenly you don’t go to expensive MBA classes because you can watch them all online or eat much sugars and msg because you’ll be well aware that it’s not really helpful.

    You won’t really buy more medicines than you used to when you know that drinking water, exercise and eating healthy will do it in the first place. You won’t buy physical books, unless you support the writer’s talent. The idea of owning a thing will be different because suddenly you won’t buy a thing you will use only once, like a power-drill. More on people who work versus entitled jerks. Tons of stuff.

    Reduction on virtually all businesses that require you to lift your butt even if you
    don’t really need to.

    Waking up, I can’t call Telcos stupid because I know they got it all figured out more than we know, there’s just less heat,desire(gigil) and voting power that can implement change.

    Someone’s got to be pleased first to understand that moving forward is a win-win. Everyone’s onto space exploration and we’re here arguing over internet like 80’s.

    Upgrading the web speed means a lot.

    • Joe America says:

      Well, said, Chivas. I agree, the telco’s are master game-players and I suspect laugh a lot when they are dining at Antonios. (Which I googled as one of the most expensive restaurants in Manila.)

  35. Ireneo,

    We’ve not discuss drones and balloons yet the pet project of everyone at Silicon Valley– that, and robots. How would that tie in to the Internet Exchange model, or will Google, facebook, Microsoft, Tesla, etc have to provide their own backbone, and is that feasible? ie, by pass submerged or microwaved wires, for satellites or other non- line of sight means.

    • No idea about how they want to go about that actually. This is where real insider information is valuable, from experts who have actually worked at IXes or big telcos.

      Finally you need a “line” for every Internet request, no matter how many IXes it actually passes – the whole Internet is one big network. The “tracert” command that you enter into your Windows command prompt shows the actual routers that a given request passes by.

      C:\Users\Irineo>tracert joeam.com

      1 2 ms 10 ms 2 ms o2.box []
      2 20 ms 18 ms 18 ms (omitted for privacy)
      3 18 ms 18 ms 18 ms bundle-ether10.0003.dbrx.01.muc.de.net.telefonic
      a.de []
      4 28 ms 34 ms 26 ms ae3-0.0002.corx.01.muc.de.net.telefonica.de [62.
      5 30 ms 28 ms 39 ms ae7-0.0001.corx.02.fra.de.net.telefonica.de [62.
      6 24 ms 26 ms 27 ms ae21-0.01.xd.0001-01.fra.de.net.telefonica.de [6]
      7 26 ms 26 ms 25 ms et-0-1-0-0.0002.prrx.01.fra.de.net.telefonica.de
      8 30 ms 34 ms 27 ms edge-a01.fra.automattic.net []
      9 25 ms 27 ms 37 ms

      So my request to joeam.com goes via my DSL router to Telefonica/O2 in Munich, then several routers at Telefonica Frankfurt before passing through the IX there to destination. Now for pldt.com.ph, I omit the first two routers:

      3 18 ms 23 ms 18 ms bundle-ether10.0004.dbrx.01.muc.de.net.telefonic
      a.de []
      4 * 25 ms 26 ms ae4-0.0001.corx.01.muc.de.net.telefonica.de [62.
      5 27 ms 25 ms 25 ms ae7-0.0001.corx.01.fra.de.net.telefonica.de [62.
      6 27 ms 26 ms 28 ms ae20-0.01.xd.0001-01.fra.de.net.telefonica.de [6]
      7 25 ms 27 ms 25 ms et-0-1-0-0.0001.prrx.01.fra.de.net.telefonica.de
      8 28 ms 27 ms 29 ms ae0-o-grtfraix5.net.telefonicaglobalsolutions.co
      m []
      9 158 ms 111 ms 114 ms xe1-0-6-0-grtnycpt3.net.telefonicaglobalsolution
      s.com []
      10 * * * Zeitüberschreitung der Anforderung.
      11 * 180 ms 182 ms
      12 179 ms 179 ms 182 ms ae-2.r06.plalca01.us.bb.gin.ntt.net [
      13 332 ms 329 ms 331 ms
      14 348 ms 348 ms 348 ms []

      15 349 ms 348 ms 351 ms []

      16 340 ms 337 ms 367 ms []

      17 339 ms 344 ms 339 ms
      18 342 ms 340 ms 345 ms
      19 348 ms 349 ms 351 ms

      From what I gather it goes via Telefonica Munich, Frankfurt, then Telefonica Global Frankfurt router to Telefonica Global NYC router, some other place then NTT USA, then some undefined place then it takes a huge amount of time just within PLDT itself, even within subnetworks 210.213 and 210.14 which is truly weird. Filipinos within the Philippines with IT knowledge should be doing traces like this to find out where stuff is getting slow.

      • Now for dost.gov.ph:

        3 18 ms 19 ms 21 ms bundle-ether10.0003.dbrx.01.muc.de.net.telefonic
        a.de []
        4 24 ms 19 ms 18 ms ae3-0.0001.corx.01.muc.de.net.telefonica.de [62.
        5 18 ms 18 ms 18 ms ae2-0.01.xd.0001-01.muc.de.net.telefonica.de [62
        6 18 ms 18 ms 18 ms gi2-0-0.02.prci.0002-01.muc.de.net.telefonica.de
        7 19 ms 18 ms 19 ms 10gigabitethernet1-2.core1.muc1.he.net [80.81.20
        8 27 ms 25 ms 46 ms 10ge10-17.core1.fra1.he.net []
        9 87 ms 34 ms 37 ms 100ge5-2.core1.par2.he.net []
        10 208 ms 215 ms 208 ms 10ge3-1.core1.sin1.he.net []
        11 242 ms 245 ms 241 ms 10ge6-1.core1.hkg1.he.net []
        12 279 ms 271 ms 284 ms wificity-inc.gigabitethernet4-4.core1.hkg1.he.ne
        t []
        13 258 ms 266 ms *
        14 255 ms 256 ms 257 ms xe-1-4.core-6504.pregi.net []
        15 266 ms 266 ms 266 ms

        The request goes to Telefonica Munich, then via CORE1 Internet Exchange from Munich through Frankfurt, Paris, Singapore and Hongkong routers, then to Wifi-City in Hongkong, then to pregi.net ( Philippine Research, Education and Government Information Network ) which belongs to ASTI and finally to dost.gov.ph. Things start to get slow from Singapore onwards, but overall it connects twice as fast as to PLDT. Forget globe that takes too long.

      • Society members, please submit your tracerts to the three locations I have traced and post them here, please specify from where and with which provider you are accessing.

        The more the better, it will be a vital basis for an article on the Philippine Internet – I will go through every tracert and analyze the weak points in routing mercilessly as EVIDENCE – MRP will you please provide some evidence as well, this is not just a witness acount! 🙂

        If it is OK with Joe, I will post the article in my blog as well – and while we are at it I will ask Raissa if she wants to publish it also – Philippine Internet speed is a vital national issue and it makes sense to have this on as many major channels as possible for effectivity.

        • https://joeam.com/2015/09/27/nationalize-the-telcos/#comment-138873

          Gian was first! Please do not post tracerts that consist only of timeouts…

          • Tracing route to joeam.com (
            over a maximum of 30 hops:

            1 27 ms 30 ms 29 ms
            2 27 ms 84 ms 11 ms
            3 11 ms 27 ms 14 ms
            4 10 ms 24 ms 11 ms
            5 16 ms 10 ms 27 ms 10GE1-1-0.GW.SJ.skybroadband.com.ph (
            6 42 ms 41 ms 56 ms 2635.sgw.equinix.com (
            7 68 ms 42 ms 39 ms

            Trace complete.

          • edgar lores says:

            Location: Brisbane Australia
            Provider: Optus
            Ookla Download speed: ~23.38 – 27.02Mbps; Upload speed: ~1.43 – 1.49Mbps

            Tracing route to joeam.com []
            Over a maximum of 30hops:

            1 1 ms 1 ms 2 ms
            2 9 ms 8 ms 11 ms (omitted for privacy)
            4 10 ms 8ms 10 ms
            6 9 ms 21 ms 9 ms te-8-0-0.14vrc76f06.optus.net.au []
            7 385 ms 12 ms 9 ms Connectcom.14vrc76f06.optus.net.au []
            8 23 ms 26 ms 23 ms po9.bqueedist02.aapt.net.au []
            9 23 ms 21 ms 22 ms te0-3-1-0.bforvcore01.aapt.net.au []
            10 24 ms 21 ms 21 ms te0-0-1-0.sclarcire01.aapt.net.au []
            11 26 ms 22 ms 22 ms po11.sclardist01.aapt.net.au []
            12 30 ms 26 ms 23 ms 1-1-1.sclarinte01.aapt.net.au []
            13 22 ms 23 ms 22 ms 59-100-239-14.syd.static-ipl.aapt.com.au []
            14 223 ms 25 ms 14 ms xe-3-0-0-3010.a01.sydneau84.au.ra.gin.ntt.net []
            15 26 ms 24 ms 26 ms xe-5-0-0-a01.sydnau84.au.ra.gin.ntt.net []
            16 23 ms 27 ms 26 ms

            Trace complete.

            Tracing route to pldt.com.ph []
            Over a maximum of 30 hops

            1 1 ms 1 ms 1 ms
            2 10 ms 11 ms 8 ms (omitted for privacy)
            7 22 ms 26 ms 23 ms
            8 25 ms 24 ms 31 ms
            9 26 ms 24 ms 24 ms
            10 194 ms 254 ms 184 ms
            11 193 ms 193 ms 189 ms 1as-bb1-link.telia.net []
            12 533 ms 177 ms 253 ms 1as-b3-link.telia.net []
            13 182 ms 184 ms 182 ms ntt-ic-143926-1as-b3.c.telia.net []
            14 175 ms 179 ms 628 ms aw-6.r21.1sanca03.us.bb.gin.ntt.net []
            15 177 ms 181 ms 175 ms ae-0.r23.1sanca07.us.bb.gin.ntt.net []
            16 192 ms 192 ms 201 ms ae-12.r22.snjsca04.us.bb.gin.ntt.net []
            17 347 ms 241 ms 193 ms ae-36.r02.snjsca04.us.bb.gin.ntt.net []
            18 193 ms 193 ms 193 ms ae-4.r06.plalca01.us.bb.gin.ntt.net []
            19 328 ms 527 ms 412 ms
            20 338 ms 334 ms 335 ms []
            21 516 ms 352 ms 352 ms []
            22 323 ms 353 ms 357 ms []
            23 367 ms 356 ms 354 ms
            24 554 ms 413 ms 358 ms
            25 353 ms 354 ms 361 ms

            Trace complete.

            Tracing route to dost.gov.ph []
            Over a maximum of 30 hops

            1 1 ms 1 ms 1 ms
            2 11 ms 12 ms 8 ms (omitted for privacy)
            7 35 ms 26 ms 27 ms
            8 27 ms 27 ms 25 ms
            9 171 ms 24 ms 26 ms
            12 139 ms 136 ms 135 ms BHA-0017.gw1.hkg3.asianetcom.net []
            13 144 ms 145 ms 609 ms
            14 145 ms 142 ms 141 ms i-0-2-0-2.hkth-core01.bi.telstraglobal.net []
            15 149 ms 142 ms 141 ms i-0-1-1-0.hkhh11.bi.telstraglobal.net []
            16 * * 513 ms i-0-5-1-0.hkhh01.bi.telstraglobal.net. []
            17 175 ms 194 ms 174 ms unknown.telstraglobal.net []
            18 158 ms 170 ms 160 ms
            19 326 ms 271 ms 353 ms xe-1-4.core-6504.pregi.net []
            20 171 ms 158 ms 157 ms

            Trace complete.

        • Joe America says:

          I think you have answered my question. How to popularize the findings, if indeed they reflect evident weakness in Philippine telecom performance “behind the scenes”.

  36. chempo says:

    Location: Makati
    ISP – Globe

    Tracing route to joeam.com []
    over a maximum of 30 hops:

    1 1 ms 1 ms 1 ms
    2 31 ms 20 ms 20 ms
    3 19 ms 21 ms 20 ms
    4 22 ms 20 ms 27 ms
    5 30 ms 33 ms 30 ms
    6 43 ms 44 ms 49 ms
    7 42 ms 44 ms 44 ms xe-0-1-0-xcr1.hkg.cw.net []
    8 41 ms 42 ms 41 ms xe-0-2-0-xcr1.hke.cw.net []
    9 43 ms 49 ms 44 ms 2635.hkg.equinix.com []
    10 47 ms 42 ms 41 ms

    Trace complete.

  37. chempo says:

    Location: Makati
    ISP: Globe

    Tracing route to joeam.com []
    over a maximum of 30 hops:

    1 1 ms 1 ms 1 ms
    2 23 ms 37 ms 24 ms
    3 21 ms 20 ms 21 ms
    4 48 ms 21 ms 20 ms
    5 29 ms 28 ms 28 ms
    6 43 ms 48 ms 42 ms
    7 42 ms 46 ms 41 ms xe-0-1-0-xcr1.hkg.cw.net []
    8 41 ms 43 ms 41 ms xe-0-2-0-xcr1.hke.cw.net []
    9 46 ms 44 ms 45 ms 2635.hkg.equinix.com []
    10 41 ms 42 ms 41 ms

    Tracing route to dost.gov.ph []
    over a maximum of 30 hops:

    1 2 ms 2 ms 2 ms
    2 20 ms 20 ms 22 ms
    3 26 ms 20 ms 20 ms
    4 24 ms 22 ms 20 ms
    5 21 ms 20 ms 21 ms
    6 21 ms 29 ms 42 ms
    7 24 ms 21 ms 20 ms
    8 23 ms 22 ms 22 ms
    9 22 ms 22 ms 22 ms xe-1-4.core-6504.pregi.net []
    10 22 ms 21 ms 22 ms

    Tracing route to pdlt.com.ph []
    over a maximum of 30 hops:

    1 4 ms 4 ms 3 ms
    2 46 ms 21 ms 43 ms
    3 21 ms 21 ms 23 ms
    4 24 ms 32 ms 27 ms
    5 22 ms 37 ms 108 ms
    6 29 ms 21 ms 25 ms
    7 23 ms 21 ms 21 ms
    8 28 ms 28 ms 20 ms
    9 * * * Request timed out.
    10 * * * Request timed out.
    11 * * * Request timed out.

    Sorry, been having intermittent signal out problems for the past several months.
    Always got timed out at the 9th hop to pdlt.

  38. karl garcia says:

    isp- smartbro

    tracing route to joeam.com []
    over a maximum of 30 hops:

    1 2 ms 1 ms 1 ms
    2 * * * Request timed out.
    3 943 ms 256 ms 468 ms
    4 921 ms 998 ms 505 ms
    5 314 ms 338 ms 348 ms
    6 283 ms 318 ms 348 ms[]
    7 283 ms 348 ms 328 ms []
    8 292 ms 689 ms 596 ms []
    9 1001 ms 566 ms 1020 ms las-3-link.telia.net []
    10 433 ms 520 ms 496 ms las-b21-link.telia.net []
    11 640 ms 698 ms 533 ms peer1-ic-309067-las-b21.c.telia.net []
    12 477 ms 860 ms 525 ms
    trace complete

  39. karl garcia says:

    Microsoft(R) Windows DOS
    (C)Copyright Microsoft Corp 1990-2001.

    C:\USERS\ASUS>tracert joeam.com

    Tracing route to joeam.com []
    over a maximum of 30 hops:

    1 2 ms 1 ms 1 ms
    2 * * * Request timed out.
    3 943 ms 256 ms 468 ms
    4 921 ms 998 ms 505 ms
    5 314 ms 338 ms 348 ms
    6 283 ms 318 ms 348 ms []
    7 283 ms 348 ms 328 ms [
    8 292 ms 689 ms 596 ms [
    9 1001 ms 566 ms 1020 ms las-b3-link.telia.net []
    10 433 ms 520 ms 496 ms las-b21-link.telia.net []
    11 640 ms 698 ms 533 ms peer1-ic-309067-las-b21.c.telia.net [80.239.196.
    12 477 ms 860 ms 525 ms

    Trace complete.

    C:\USERS\ASUS>tracert dost.gov.ph

    Tracing route to dost.gov.ph []
    over a maximum of 30 hops:

    1 2 ms 2 ms 2 ms
    2 * * * Request timed out.
    3 280 ms 1148 ms 946 ms
    4 59 ms 68 ms 68 ms
    5 64 ms 70 ms 118 ms
    6 89 ms 47 ms 52 ms []
    7 61 ms 87 ms 88 ms [
    8 92 ms 49 ms 44 ms [
    9 206 ms 197 ms 248 ms unknown.telstraglobal.net []
    10 228 ms 231 ms 236 ms i-0-2-0-12.hkth-core01.bi.telstraglobal.net [202
    11 222 ms 265 ms 260 ms i-0-0-0-20.hkhh11.bi.telstraglobal.net [202.84.1
    12 226 ms 230 ms 278 ms i-0-5-1-0.hkhh01.bi.telstraglobal.net [202.84.15
    13 259 ms 289 ms 254 ms unknown.telstraglobal.net []
    14 799 ms 861 ms 1188 ms
    15 724 ms 828 ms 739 ms xe-1-4.core-6504.pregi.net []
    16 731 ms 910 ms 1021 ms

    Trace complete.

    C:\USERS\ASUS>tracert pldt.com.ph

    Tracing route to pldt.com.ph []
    over a maximum of 30 hops:

    1 2 ms 2 ms 2 ms
    2 * * * Request timed out.
    3 710 ms 328 ms 298 ms
    4 297 ms 985 ms 251 ms
    5 1657 ms 3029 ms 275 ms
    6 72 ms 48 ms 65 ms
    7 66 ms 126 ms 69 ms
    8 80 ms 85 ms 65 ms
    9 71 ms 86 ms 57 ms []

    10 84 ms 45 ms 88 ms [
    11 70 ms 45 ms 94 ms []
    12 70 ms 48 ms 50 ms []

    13 90 ms 70 ms 118 ms
    14 69 ms 108 ms 94 ms
    15 73 ms 80 ms 116 ms

    Trace complete.

    • Another tracert from Q.C. to Cebu and Davao

      C:\Users\JohLloyd>tracert sunstar.com.ph/cebu
      Unable to resolve target system name sunstar.com.ph/cebu.

      C:\Users\JohLloyd>tracert sunstar.com.ph

      Tracing route to sunstar.com.ph []
      over a maximum of 30 hops:

      1 19 ms 29 ms 13 ms
      2 * 277 ms 261 ms
      3 204 ms 206 ms 214 ms
      4 * 15 ms 30 ms
      5 41 ms 48 ms 55 ms 10GE1-1-0.GW.SJ.skybroadband.com.ph [114.108.192
      6 52 ms 43 ms 76 ms []
      7 205 ms 220 ms *
      8 306 ms 283 ms 235 ms ge-4-0-2.GW2.LAX1.ALTER.NET []
      9 311 ms 306 ms * 0.ae2.XL4.CHI13.ALTER.NET []
      10 322 ms 252 ms 297 ms TenGigE0-7-0-4.GW5.CHI13.ALTER.NET [
      11 * * * Request timed out.
      12 * * 336 ms lw-dc3-core2-vlan66.rtr.liquidweb.com [209.59.15
      13 287 ms 326 ms 317 ms lw-dc3-dist9-po6.rtr.liquidweb.com [
      14 300 ms * 297 ms host2.sunstar.com.ph []

      Trace complete.

      C:\Users\JohLloyd>tracert davaotoday.com

      Tracing route to davaotoday.com []
      over a maximum of 30 hops:

      1 23 ms 34 ms 26 ms
      2 * 29 ms 22 ms
      3 31 ms 40 ms 15 ms
      4 50 ms 12 ms 23 ms
      5 72 ms 63 ms 67 ms
      6 124 ms 90 ms 82 ms []
      7 60 ms 55 ms 172 ms
      8 433 ms 451 ms 385 ms ge-2-0-2-xcr1.sgs.cw.net []
      9 523 ms 485 ms 521 ms ae3-xcr2.sgs.cw.net []
      10 689 ms 657 ms * xe-5-3-0-xcr1.mry.cw.net []
      11 770 ms 853 ms 950 ms xe-0-2-0-xcr1.pal.cw.net []
      12 * 850 ms 781 ms
      13 795 ms 813 ms 677 ms ae1-xcr2.nyk.cw.net []
      14 * * * Request timed out.
      15 510 ms 504 ms 526 ms vl565.cr1.lga2.us.as19318.net []
      16 590 ms * 686 ms
      17 * 539 ms 630 ms openvz87.is.cc []
      18 621 ms * 514 ms piece1.piecesforall.com []

      Trace complete.

      C:\Users\JohLloyd>tracert mindanaotimes.net

      Tracing route to mindanaotimes.net []
      over a maximum of 30 hops:

      1 175 ms 167 ms 199 ms
      2 132 ms 126 ms 139 ms ge-1-4.sj1.skybroadband.com.ph []

      3 136 ms 123 ms 131 ms
      4 344 ms 223 ms 199 ms
      5 126 ms 152 ms 120 ms 10GE1-1-0.GW.SJ.skybroadband.com.ph [114.108.192
      6 109 ms 156 ms 114 ms []
      7 * 49 ms 54 ms po14.ccore.rsv.bayan.net.ph []
      8 * * * Request timed out.
      9 253 ms 230 ms * be39.trmc0215-01.ars.mgmt.phx3.gdg [
      10 * 241 ms * be39.trmc0215-01.ars.mgmt.phx3.gdg [
      11 * 221 ms 242 ms ip-208-109-112-121.ip.secureserver.net [208.109.
      12 260 ms 243 ms 289 ms ip-166-62-33-30.ip.secureserver.net [

      Trace complete.

      C:\Users\JohLloyd>tracert globe.com.ph

      • C:\Users\Irineo>tracert sunstar.com.ph

        Routenverfolgung zu sunstar.com.ph []
        über maximal 30 Hops:

        1 2 ms 2 ms 2 ms o2.box []
        2 17 ms 36 ms 18 ms (conf)
        3 19 ms 22 ms 21 ms bundle-ether10.0003.dbrx.01.muc.de.net.telefonic
        a.de []
        4 28 ms 29 ms 31 ms ae3-0.0002.corx.01.muc.de.net.telefonica.de [62.
        5 33 ms 29 ms 30 ms ae7-0.0001.corx.02.fra.de.net.telefonica.de [62.
        6 29 ms 26 ms 25 ms ae21-0.01.xd.0001-01.fra.de.net.telefonica.de [6]
        7 25 ms 27 ms 26 ms et-0-1-0-0.0001.prrx.01.fra.de.net.telefonica.de
        8 27 ms 44 ms 25 ms ae0-o-grtfraix5.net.telefonicaglobalsolutions.co
        m []
        9 34 ms 40 ms 39 ms xe5-0-0-0-grtpareq1.red.telefonica-wholesale.net
        10 35 ms 41 ms 35 ms
        11 * * * Zeitüberschreitung der Anforderung.
        12 149 ms 157 ms 142 ms 4-15-84-142.liquidweb.com []
        13 135 ms 152 ms 134 ms lw-dc3-core1-vlan52.rtr.liquidweb.com [209.59.15
        14 139 ms 138 ms 149 ms lw-dc3-dist9-po5.rtr.liquidweb.com [
        15 144 ms 144 ms 145 ms host2.sunstar.com.ph []

        Ablaufverfolgung beendet.

        C:\Users\Irineo>tracert davaotoday.com

        Routenverfolgung zu davaotoday.com []
        über maximal 30 Hops:

        1 3 ms 4 ms 3 ms o2.box []
        2 18 ms 56 ms 18 ms (conf)
        3 18 ms 24 ms 21 ms bundle-ether10.0004.dbrx.01.muc.de.net.telefonic
        a.de []
        4 25 ms 28 ms 28 ms ae4-0.0001.corx.01.muc.de.net.telefonica.de [62.
        5 29 ms 52 ms 67 ms ae7-0.0001.corx.01.fra.de.net.telefonica.de [62.
        6 26 ms 26 ms 25 ms ae20-0.02.xd.0001-01.fra.de.net.telefonica.de [6]
        7 31 ms 25 ms 25 ms et-7-1-0-0.0002.prrx.01.fra.de.net.telefonica.de
        8 31 ms 26 ms 29 ms xe-1-2-0.mpr1.fra4.de.above.net []
        9 41 ms 25 ms 25 ms ae8.mpr1.fra3.de.zip.zayo.com []
        10 38 ms 31 ms 44 ms ae4.cr1.ams5.nl.zip.zayo.com []
        11 128 ms 122 ms 150 ms xe-1-2-0.cr2.lga5.us.zip.zayo.com [
        12 120 ms 119 ms 119 ms ae8.mpr2.ewr2.us.zip.zayo.com []
        13 120 ms 118 ms 118 ms [208.18
        14 123 ms 120 ms 120 ms
        15 167 ms 167 ms 178 ms
        16 140 ms 119 ms 148 ms openvz87.is.cc []
        17 118 ms 118 ms 118 ms server.mangasg.com []

        Ablaufverfolgung beendet.

        C:\Users\Irineo>tracert mindanaotimes.net

        Routenverfolgung zu mindanaotimes.net []
        über maximal 30 Hops:

        1 3 ms 5 ms 2 ms o2.box []
        2 18 ms 19 ms 40 ms (conf)
        3 19 ms 18 ms 20 ms bundle-ether10.0003.dbrx.01.muc.de.net.telefonic
        a.de []
        4 19 ms 21 ms 18 ms ae0-0.0001.prrx.01.muc.de.net.telefonica.de [62.
        5 17 ms 17 ms 18 ms
        6 39 ms 42 ms 45 ms bundle-ether7.03.xmwc.99.muc.de.net.telefonica.d
        e []
        7 18 ms 19 ms 18 ms ae3-0.02.rmwc.99.muc.de.net.telefonica.de [62.53
        8 57 ms 58 ms 31 ms xe-0-0-3-0.02.rmwc.99.fra.de.net.telefonica.de []
        9 33 ms 34 ms 30 ms ae0-0.01.rmwc.99.fra.de.net.telefonica.de [62.53
        10 42 ms 46 ms 41 ms ae1-0.01.xmwc.99.ams.nl.net.telefonica.de [62.53
        11 39 ms 46 ms 39 ms
        12 181 ms 237 ms 184 ms be38.trmc0215-01.ars.mgmt.phx3.gdg [
        13 180 ms 186 ms 180 ms be38.trmc0215-01.ars.mgmt.phx3.gdg [
        14 182 ms 278 ms 185 ms ip-208-109-112-121.ip.secureserver.net [208.109.
        15 180 ms 180 ms 187 ms ip-166-62-33-30.ip.secureserver.net [

        Ablaufverfolgung beendet.

        Interesting- I suspect that at least Davao Today and Mindanaotimes have their servers abroad – not just from the .com and .net endings, also by looking at the routing. More on that later, I am just in my lunch break now, have to eat then back to work.

  40. Thanks to everybody who has contributed so far! Preliminary status:

    1) Samples from Metro Manila give a pretty good picture of how it works there. If you are PLDT going to PLDT, fine, if not you pass by abroad (PLDT to DOST, Globe to PLDT).

    2) Only sample from the province (Joe) shows that it pretty much times out. Other samples from the province (josephivo?) that hopefully do not time out would show more. I suspect that routing to Manila where everything probably passes through is very inefficient.

    3) Samples from accessing via overseas (Oz, Germany) show very much the same picture. Going to PLDT you pass by the US before going to the Philippines – old colonial setup. Going to DOST you pass by a more direct route. Some US samples would be very helpful.

    First preliminary conclusions – I will start writing the article “Philippine Internet speed” this evening, hopefully some more data will come up:

    a) lack of local peering/transit agreements by PLDT is definitely part of the problem.

    b) Stuff going to PLDT from abroad seems to pass via the US all the time. This is like going to Quiapo from NAIA by taking EDSA up to Cubao, then going down Aurora and passing the Palace.

    c) Bad Telco guy gave the feedback that they keep upgrading but then it is not enough. That is what I also suspected, this is normal in a country or area where usage is expanding. But then the problem is that the telcos are overselling and overpromising. They should only sell what they can reasonably deliver. Meaning for example a certain speed but only up to a certain number of MB per month, then cap to very slow speed – which is what I have here for my mobile internet, if I want my old speed back after overusing it, I have to pay an additional fee. This is no problem for me.

    d) Transparent communication is a major part of good customer service. In the Philippines neither the government nor private companies are good at this. Why not say – video streaming is causing our capacities to be strained, or we are experiencing bottlenecks in the Visayas. To be fair, telcos in Germany are often not transparent on this, but there are enough techies around who post current situations on the internet and expose them. Any network – roads, Internet has a given capacity and can reach a point where it gets slow or hardly moves. But excuses make it worse.

    e) Routing is a major aspect like I wrote in b) – I suspect that too much Internet traffic from the provinces gets bogged down on the way to Metro Manila. In Germany a lot of traffic goes via Frankfurt, used to be the main connection to the global internet, but IXes are now in all major cities and backbone providers like Hurricane Electric are everywhere. Everything else is like having to drive all the way to Alabang to get on the SLEX because you are south of EDSA. The barangay roads may be bad but the faster you get off them the better, to avoid tricycles and stuff.

    The New Zealand model is good – state-owned backbone and sell bandwidth to retailers. The Romanian model which is similar to the way Filipino squatters or Romanian gypsies organized their water and electricity, only more legit, also works – small enterpreneurs setting up networks, some of them on overland masts and connecting them by themselves works at least in cities – could work for retailers, but the backbone is important. Gotta work in a few minutes, see y’all.

    • Bert says:

      You’re really good, Noy. I’m in awe.

      • Thanks Bert, I almost am blushing… but like I wrote to Joe this is just applying the skills I learned at work to an issue I care about. It is actually more fun than applying it to earning money, even if my problem-solving skills are what my customers pay me for to save money.

        Isang request lang: could you please do a tracert like the other guys, I do not have any full trace from the provinces yet. The details on what to do you can see further above.

        • Bert says:

          Can’t, Noy. My knowledge in computer are confined to cut and paste and video editing. I don’t even know how to insert a link. Been too long in the bundok, was not able to catch up with stuffs like you guys are very good at. Sorry.

          • No problem… nagbakasakali lang ako… 🙂 davidebebotski has tried the route from Manila to province, and the results already confirm what I suspected, no even worse the stuff seems to go abroad first – crazy!

            Hopefully josephivo shows up, I think he lives in the provinces, or Steve, the route from provinces to Manila or abroad is the trace I am still missing…

            • bauwow says:

              Hi Irineo, thank you for the analysis! From what I gathered, PLDT not sharing is one of the reasons we have a pathetic internet service. It has been said that they have the infrastructure, but refuses to cooperate with other internet providers.

              • Welcome! I am happy to have a chance to use my professional experience – even if it is in another part of IT – to be able to analyze the problem. My article will summarize this and the possible solutions I have scattered as comments while thinking of possibilities.

                Tama, PLDT (but also Globe) are not sharing, first reason. Second kulang ang local na koneksiyon sa pandaigdig na Internet, sa backbone, sa expressway ika nga – lahat pati DOST kahit sila ang pinakamaunlad sa lahat dumadaan sa dayuhan kaya bumabagal, PLDT lumang-luma ang approach lahat ng papunta o galing abroad pinadadaan sa USA kahit galing Australia o Alemanya. Third mukhang mahina ang linya papuntang probinsya.

    • My article is out now: http://filipinogerman.blogsport.eu/philippine-internet-speed/ – summarizing the most important results of this discussion from my point of view.

      Joe feel free to reblog it if you want, please just link to the original if you do.

      • I am feeling a bit of your pain in the past few days as the Oktoberfest just close by my place is moving towards its final weekend. Seven million visitors in two weeks make their presence felt – at least 30 mobile masts set up on the fairgrounds alone give an idea of what kind of traffic people are generating on their mobiles, probably lots of drunken selfies and at this time who knows what kind of videos visitors are putting into Facebook. It is 1 a.m. and some might be filming whatever they are doing now – in pubs, discos, hotels.

        Internet access is slow for the standards I am used to, my keyboard often freezes up because pages take longer to load, sometimes pages do not load at all. Because the connections sometimes break, my remote connections to the customer sometimes get lost.

        Every network reaches a point where it is congested, but this is an exceptional situation.

      • The other time I remember that the Internet nearly collapsed over here was 911, with everybody frantically trying to find out what was going on…

        • I’m rendered mute in this article, being a hopeless non-techie internet user. I just read and absorb. Connections here are on and off, no reason was given, sometimes we are connected, but do not load…haisst…and it’s not yet Christmas or New Year.

          • No problem… I have made the effort of summarizing it in my own article.

            But I understand that it is not easy for everybody. In fact it is often a generational matter.

            Among my customers – usually accounting departments – there is a huge generation gap.

            The “digital natives”, 25 and under, take to this stuff almost naturally because they grew up with it. Half of the Philippine population are digital natives / millenials and I hope many of them read this stuff to be not just consumers but also more aware of what is behind it.

            In fact the young population of the Philippine has huge potential to bring the Philippines forward in the modern world. I have seen this happening in Romania where they are very ambitious and driven to make their country modern and successful, especially the young.

            And they experienced similar things to the Philippines with Marcos’s friend Ceaucescu, except that he was not whisked off the balcony by the Russians after saying goodbye but was shot afterward. And fortunately his wife Elena did not sing on the balcony like Imelda.

            But also there, the young who did not experience Ceaucescu are being brainwashed by the ex-communists who are still all over the place, and many believe it was better then.

            In that Latin country, “spaga” (lagay) is also a way of life, teachers ask for it to pass students, doctors in state universities ask for it to treat patients… but they have ultra-fast Internet and e-government including all court cases are online, even police investigations.

            Meaning if you want to find out about your business partners there just google them and it comes out fast. And there the fast exchange of people working and visiting abroad has catapulted the country into modernity quickly. Their current President is cleaning up also.

  41. bauwow says:

    Also, will the Pakistani Internet Balloon feasible enough for us? At least to improve the service from our internet service providers?

    • Saranggola na lang para sariling atin! Jokes aside, balloon na may fiber optic cable na mahaba tapos may radyo sa itaas siguro ang pinakamurang solusyon para sa probinsya.

      Sa siyudad naman, maaring makatulong ang “jologs system” na ginawa sa Romania – parang elektrisidad sa mga slums nila at sa Pilipinas, basta may koneksiyon kahit kable na nakasabit lang kung saan saan. Maliliit na negosyante lang ang gumawa ng sistemang ganyan sa Romania tapos sila na ang nagkonekta sa isa’t-isa dahil noong una walang masyadong ginawa ang Romtelecom, ngayon na sumali na pati Romtelecom, mas mabilis na ang Internet sa Romania kaysa doon sa USA o Alemanya. Ingenuity ang kailangan.

      • bauwow says:

        ang PLDT daw, ay nagsimula ng mag rollout ng fiberoptic technology. I hope that BadTelcoGuy fills us in, baka eto na yung sinasabi nilang upgrade.
        salamat ulit Irineo!

        • Lahat naman sila panay ang upgrade, pati Globe naglagay na ng mga undersea cables. Kaya lang ang Globe doon lang sa Palawan, Boracay at Coron naglagay – tourist spots. Tapos tama din siguro si BadTelcoGuy, mahirap talaga makahabol sa dami ng gumagamit.

          Baka naman kasi puro scandal ang pinapanood ng mga Pilipino, o kaya sobrang dami ng nag-to-torrent kaya bumabagal. Tulad ng mga kalyeng nahihirapan sa dami ng kotse. 🙂

  42. mcmxciv says:

    We should really nationalize the Telcos. Mas lalo lang napagsasamantalahan ang mga Pinoy dahil nakaprivatize. And Telsra’s coming too, originally from Australia. Dapat maayos na ang system sa bansa natin.

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