#ntc circular

When I first read about that proposed NTC circular about "Guidelines on the Provision of Contents, Information, Applications, and Electronic Games", I shrugged it off because it was obviously referring to the mobile telecoms industry. However, there were a lot of allegations flying around that this will affect all the millions of bloggers, forum posters, Friendster users and YouTubers in the Philippines if the NTC will require them to pay a license fee (amounting to Php6,300). And while the definition of Content Developers was very broad ("persons or entities creating contents"), NTC's definition of Content ("all types of contents delivered to/accessed by the users/subscribers such as music, ring tones, logos, video clips, etc.") was obviously focused on mobile content and not content over the internet. The most prudent course of action was to ask the proponents of the circular what they meant by all these and who are specifically covered by it, which, Romeo Rabajante Jr. did (I applaud him for doing so): I e-mailed NTC asking regarding this issue and Mr. Cabarios director of Common Carriers Authorization Department of NTC replied to my e-mail. Back in 2007, there was actually a draft memo by the NTC to regulate all forms of Internet content by classifying it as a value-added service (VAS) and charge fees accordingly. Read more in our articles including "Where that NTC Circular might affect Bloggers?" and "Globe and Smart pass NTC's QoS tests for Q2".