fbpx

NTC hearings on Minimum Broadband Speeds looks promising

Since November of 2014, the National Telecommunications Commission has been holding public hearings about the issue on Minimum Broadband Speeds. Recent updates about the results of the series of hearings have yielded promising results.

In a summary update by @ceso, there are a number of regulations and adjustments in the manner by which ISPs will market and service their subscribers.

Here are the more plausible outcome of the hearings:

  • Possible removal of the “Up to X Mbps” in the subscription plan. It will be replaced by an indicated average data rate per area.
  • Service downtimes will not be billed. Computation for rebates will be automatic and does not need to be reported by subscribers.
  • Data caps or Fair Use Policy will be limited to just 80% of maximum possible limit. Example: For a 1Mbps, the maximum limit is 128KB/s x 60 secs/minute x 60 mins/hour x 24 hours x 30 days = 331GB. Data cap shall be no less than 80% of 331GB or 265GB.
  • NTC will regularly conduct independent tests of internet speeds on several areas to check for consistency and reliability then report it to the public/subscribers.

Perhaps the biggest and most critical of all these will be the data caps. ISPs have started phasing out their unlimited services and replacing them with volume-based subscription.

Customers who still have their old subscription plans that indicated unlimited data will be the ones who will benefit the most (so remember to not change that plan to anything new they will offer or else the “unlimited” service will also be removed or replaced with a data volume).

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 985 other subscribers
Avatar for Abe Olandres

Abe is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of YugaTech with over 20 years of experience in the technology industry. He is one of the pioneers of blogging in the country and considered by many as the Father of Tech Blogging in the Philippines. He is also a technology consultant, a tech columnist with several national publications, resource speaker and mentor/advisor to several start-up companies.

31 Responses

  1. Avatar for Jeneric Jeneric says:

    the fact that these telcos have been ordered to revise their policies indicates that there is an actual malpractice. Therefore it is not enough that they just correct wat theyre doing and they get away with it like nothing. they should be fined.. heavily… so that they learn their lesson, and hence consult first with their regulator. for reference, the US fined a telco 100 million dollars in a similar case

  2. Avatar for Ar Ar Ar Ar says:

    Di na ko aasang gaganda pa serbisyo ng mga telcos na yan diti sa bansa naten, walang ibang inisip kundi pera mga punyetang telcos yan, mabuti pa mga kalapit bansa naten sulit yung binabayaran nila sa internet. Dito saten may mga naghain na ng petition pero wala.

  3. Avatar for reireirei reireirei says:

    Well this is good news if this push through, but as always, things are slow to move. And by these times our Telcos have already created ways to bypass this law, welcome VOLUME BASED plans and goodbye UNLI Plans.

  4. Avatar for Justin Justin says:

    They should make their internet speed higher at the same price, hindi naman yung 1599 for 5Mbps lang may capping pa.

    I’m not comparing Philippines to Singapore pero were so behind in terms of internet, Singapore has 1 Gbps internet for $69 or 2300 php (based on SingTel plan) kung tama na SGD ang pagkakaintindi ko sa pricing.

    I never wish for that kind of speed in the Philippines but at least we should have an average speed of 10 Mbps and make it reliable.

  5. Avatar for nego nego says:

    “Customers who still have their old subscription plans that indicated unlimited data will be the ones who will benefit the most (so remember to not change that plan to anything new they will offer or else the “unlimited” service will also be removed or replaced with a data volume.)”

    My Unli LTE Plan 1500 is already gone and I think Smart replaced it with Surf Plus Plans capped at 7GB. Can I retain the plan when my subscription ends?

Leave a Reply
JOIN OUR TELEGRAM DISCUSSION

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *