Thousands of poor folk……

1. Goverment agencies will be interconnected including sixth class barangays. This allows for information sharing among government agencies such as NBI (National Bureaue of Investigations), SSS (Social Security System), BIR , NSO (National Statistics Office), GSIS, Pag-ibig, PhilHealth and the likes. It will be easier to get the data (like birth certificate, enroll for a SSS loan, file for a NBI clearance, and etc) that we need especially for the people who are located in the remote areas without going to the Main Offices/Headquarters. Heck, I can still remember that when I filed an NBI clearance here in Muntinilupa, I was still advised to go to the main office because they need to verify some information not in their database. It is easier to check the status of your SSS, Pag-ibig and PhilHealth if you have one ATM/card/ID that you can immediately use and swipe in the nearest kiosk.

2. Public schools will have the means to access information and be as technically competitive as other private schools who have the means and tools.

3. Government agencies can easily audit and track the performance of their employees. With the NBN Infrastructure they can easily setup up performance monitoring tools that can monitor the quality of their work. If the information can easily be accessed, auditors can easily verify the viability and quality of their work. (The same concept as used in contact centers and field workers.)

4. Different government agencies spend a whole deal for the services they acquired from the private telecommunications companies. Think of all the leased lines, direct lines, mobile phones, call center solutions that they need to put up per agency. For example, let’s say one agency acquires 300 mobile phones for their employees and let’s say that they get those phones at plan 800 at the minimum so their monthly expenses for the mobile phones alone will be 240,000. You may not feel the ROI on the first year but remember ROI only happens after the first year of its implementation.

5. Lastly, will this help in cleaning red tape and corruption? In my opinion, yes this will help in cleaning red tape and corruption. The reason red tape and corruption our prevalent is due to the fact that our processes and documents are not properly organized in a systematic way that it can be easily accessed anytime and anywhere. The only way to easily check and balance a process is if the corresponding agencies are transparent to each other through easy and immediate access to information.

The national broadband project is something that we can all benefit from not because we can boast it to other countries that we have that kind of technology but to ensure that proper attention and service from the government are delivered to the municipalities in the provincial areas. Second, digital divide among public and private schools will be lessen. Most of all, to clean the bureaucracy and red tape in our government’s processes by ensuring the transparency of information across government agencies.

Thanks for this Ian. I’m not sure if we already met personally. We(PREGINET NetOps) appreciate the recognition on your comment.

Ian said:
“That said, I believe we already have similar projects, albeit using private carriers for the long-haul: PREGINET, for example, uses Globe/Innove (last I checked, but I could be wrong since it’s been two years since I have had a chance working with them) for their regional access points, with wireless (for some areas) for last-mile connectivity.”

Yes, we are currently connected to Globe, PHOpenIX and APAN/TEIN2 network. We have more than 300 Mbs of aggregate outbound bandwidth for the R&D and commodity transit. We are still using wifi as a last-mile solution for remote connectivity.

Ian said:
“Speaking of last-mile, I wonder what happened to ASTI’s project with NTT on WIPAS? I was part of the field testing then, and the results were pretty impressive: 40MBps for up to two km. That’s using point-to-multipoint.”

A failure due to leadership issue. This is what happen when there are too many non-technical person involved on a technical project.

http://www.telstra.com.au/abouttelstra/media/podcasts_transcript.cfm?ObjectID=6

On the other note, I think this project would even cost more than presented value. To maintain this nationwide network would be a pain. If pushed through, i hope it won’t end up being sold to a private sectors in the long term…. and money has gone to pockets of our dear politicians.

The people should be the one to move these stuff forward as our government officials mostly do not have the know-how about tech stuff..

Pero parang alam ko na sasabihin nya tungkol sa ZTE-NBN contract.

“LAGOT KAYO SA MISIS KO. Ang dumi ng kontrata o!”

Anyways, the fun side of it is, that is for the IT yuppies out there, the whole world will see the stupidity of Philippine senators in all their splendor.

Sen. Noynoy Aquino
“Is this system 100% secured?”

DOTC Assistant Secretary Lorenzo Formoso III
“No your honor. There is no system in the world that can claim to be 100% secured.

Sen. Noynoy Aquino fuming
“If this system is not 100% secured then why are we entering into this project?”

DOTC Assistant Secretary Lorenzo Formoso III explains for the benefit of the ignorant son of Ninoy Aquino.
“As i’ve said your honor, there is no system that is 100% secured.”

Ang hinahanap ni Sen. Noynoy ay system na 100% secured. Sana may makita sya.

Sen. Biazon asking Atty. Formoso
“You say that there are 300+ nodes for this project all over the Philippines and each node has a radius of 30kms. So you cannot cover the whole Philippines?”

Atty. Formoso
“Yes sir there are 300++ nodes with 30km radius each but it can cover the entire country.”

Sen.Biazon
“You said 30km radius, if i multiply this by 300++ it will not reach the entire country from Luzon to Mindanao coz i did the math.”

Atty. Formoso
“The 300++ nodes cover those places that have no wired access sir.”

Marunong pala mag taymis si Sen.Biazon

Yes, I believe the project is costly and the money allotted to this can be used somewhere else. However, the presented methodology solves several issues that the others cannot.

And as I recall here in the US, this type of IT network deployment was used in the aftermath of the Katrina hurricane in NOLA, when all essential IT infrastructure was adjudged down and out. And it was rendered effective for its purposes. And I understand this same technology was also used effectively in the ravaged areas during the Aceh Indonesia tsunami.

But a few more questions. Granted that no private telcos will be used for last mile concerns, how are the remote barangays admitted into the loop? The WiMax’s 6-mile range still will not be sufficient. When we were in a remote barrio in Bukidnon (at least 50kms from the nearest city), we could connect laptops to the internet using cell phones as the media. Conclusion: where ubiquitous cell sites are located, internet access is available. And additionally, access to the government network.

Mention was made of net neutrality and am not sure how this particular issue factors in this case. I believe it should be net security that would be of primary concern, as aptly pointed out. Net neutrality has now become more of a political issue, whether there should be unrestrained freedom from regulations or restrictions, or not. But I could be wrong.

shoot that man!!!!!