DICT taps ProjectBASS to improve PH Internet

DICT will tap projectBASS.org to help measure and track Philippine internet bandwidth. DICT Secretary Eliseo Rio Jr made this announcement in a pre-recorded video.

The message was played at the launching of ProjectBASS held at Resort Worlds Hotel yesterday. The crowdsourced BASS internet data will also help drive DICT policy formation. The MOU will provide DICT with internet bandwidth monitoring system for a period of one year.

According to Secretary Rio Jr : “It (BASS) will help DICT come up with policies and programs to improve the internet speed of ISPs and Telcos. As you know the president has mandated us to make our internet speed faster and cheaper. And we need a reliable measuring tool to base our decision. I wish project bass. org all the best of luck and success in this very laudable endeavor.”

A sample BASS data visualization reveals the number of cell sites per province per operator as detected by BASS volunteers: https://public. tableau.com/profile/wilson.chua#!/vizhome/ProjectBASS-UniqueCellSites/ UniqueCellSites

When reached for comment about the development, BASS core team members were uniformly ecstatic. MsFleire Castro, BASS digital marketing guru, addedsaying :“Amazing! We’ve been dreaming of this since we started.”

The projectBASS.org deployed a mobile app to measure internet bandwidth speeds. This mobile app comes in both android and IoS versions. BASS lets volunteers convert their smartphones into mobile internet bandwidth meters. The simple, no frills interface makes it easy for anyone to use.

BASS also captures GPS location, CellSite ID, Operator ID, and signal strength.

A new feature includes a mood meter to gauge subscriber sentiment. These data are then stored on our BASS server and made freely downloadable. The application is fully open sourced and can be found in Github. The collected data is freely downloadable.

Data scientists crunch the data and come up with insights that helps ISPs and telcos manage their resources more efficiently.

DICT and the general public can now use the data to substantiate any telco claims. We will get the performance that we measure. If you want to be part of the change, please visit http:// projectbas.org and install BASS to start taking measures.