Cabinet seeks opening satellite tech to small Internet providers

THE Cabinet Economic Development Cluster (EDC) is set to recommend the Satellite Liberalization Act as a priority measure of the Duterte administration to liberalize access to the country’s orbital so that smaller Internet service providers (ISPS) and socio-civic organizations can make use of satellites to provide Internet connectivity even to remote areas of the country.

The Office of Rep. Joey Sarte Salceda has learned this from a key government official that Satellite Liberalization Act or House Bill 7081 will be recommended to President Duterte as a priority measure.

Salceda said satellite-based technologies are seen as cheaper and easier to install than broadband, which requires right-of-way and massive capital investments.

He added they have been working with partners in the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) and the Philippine Space Agency “to come up with this policy that will improve Internet connectivity in rural areas and enhance competition among Internet service providers.”

The DICT advocated for the approval of the measure by the country’s economic managers.

“We need a basket of solutions for the Philippine Internet problem. Good broadband is certainly in the mix; and we are fighting for the Faster Internet Act, which will do exactly that. But we are also pushing for satellite liberalization for rural and underserved areas.”

According to Salceda, satellitebased broadband as one of the country’s modes for making Internet access more inclusive and more diffuse is an alternative that can be quickly and easily deployed as they do not rely on wire-based systems, satellite-based Internet can service rural areas and even the most far-flung islands the country.

“In countries with similar geographic and socioeconomic issues around Internet access inclusivity, satellite technology is already being used,” Salceda added. He cited that in Japan, “an archipelago like the Philippines, with its own rural areas far from usual metropolitan regions, mobile service provider Softbank has deployed 460,000 Wi-fi hotspots nationwide connected via satellite broadband.”

He added that his office has been working with the DICT and the PHSA to make Internet connectivity faster for all areas of the country, including remote regions.

“It will be a quick fix to issues of Internet connectivity in the most underserved places,” the lawmaker said.

Earlier this week, Salceda’s proposed Faster Internet Act was also approved by the Committee on Information and Communication Technology of the House.

Under the bill, access to satellitebased technology will be made more inclusive and the regulatory framework will be made clearer.

The DICT is more explicitly mandated to be the agency in-charge of regulating the use of satellite-based technologies outside commercial telecommunications.