Wiring Asean for progress

map for the direction of our information and communications requirements and how to attract private industry to participate’

2. There are risks and cyber crime larks around; and

3. There is current collaboration in the Brunei-Indonesia-MalaysiaPhilippine East Asean Growth Area to fast-track the communications facilities of the Asean with the rest of the world.

Director Philip Varilla of the new Department of Information and Communications Technology reported that the Philippines indeed has a plan to push the country’s interconnectivity with the rest of the region and the world. But problems blocking its implementation.

Out of the forum, these main problems emerged, among them:

Legally, there is a great deterrent to attract foreign capital—the telecommunications industry is capital-intensive that no single local corporation can afford it without a foreign partner. Foreigners are limited to 40 percent equity in the industry.

The licenses and business permits requirements for new corporations to start operations are so laborious and tedious it takes months before actual business can begin.

Congress-issued franchises are required and that goes through the long lawmaking process of public hearings and months of delay in operations.

Different technologies are needed to be used to connect–to wire—the archipelago’s more than 7,000 islands and 81 provinces and two autonomous regions with the national capital region.

There is a duopoly in the industry today that the entry of another telecommunication company requires these two main players must be player inimical to the industry.

There is a lack of cell sites and relay towers due to the environmental prerequisites of local government units.

The telecommunication industry is closely linked to national security issues but the government cannot and must not compete with private industry.

There is as yet no government integrated communications infra clearance center) to address the national security concerns.

The government needs more capital to implement the plan.

Mr. Ace Esmeralda, an international crime prevention specialist and one of the few anti-terrorism specialists in the country, who heads the AAA Risk Management Inc., warned that cyberspace crimes committed in this century require law enforcers and professional anti-cyberspace crimes to keep ahead of the criminals. This means, concerned government entities must be constantly informed of with continuing personnel upgrading and training.

In short, the professional anticyber crimes specialists must be well rounded in all factors affecting national and private corporate developments on the local, regional and global levels—from simple robbing private bank accounts to national security concerns.

Dr. Alfredo Panizales, executive vice president of the Brunei-Indonesia-Malaysia-Philippine East Asean Growth the current work to interconnect the region’s communications infrastructure with the rest of the world.

The BIMP-EAGA communications project is a joint effort of the four Asean members’ government-owned which is represented by the EA Trilink the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao, or ARMM).

The first phase of the BIMPEAGA BEST cable project connects Kota Kinabalu in Sabah to Brunei, and will be completed by the end of this year. The second phase connecting Kota Kinabalu and Tawau Borneo terrestrial project.

The third phase, the undersea cable from Tawau to Parang in Central Mindanao facing the Illana Bay and the Moro Gulf, will be started at the end of this month and end of 2018. By the start of 2019, it should be fully operational.

This will mean a lot to consumers in the Philippines because it will bring down the costs of internet services in the country. From Parang, any private service provider can distribute the broadband services to the rest of the archipelago and give the now some competition.

Currently, the Philippines has the - ternet service, and the slowest, among most of the Asean members because of the duopoly.

While the two giant telecommunications service providers now charge between $400 to $600 mbph, Panizales said, the average Asean rate is only between $10 to $40 mbph.

Panizales left the arithmetical exercise to the forum participants but logically it should not be more than $100 at the most. Consumers like you and me will just have to wait until the early months of 2019 to see for ourselves.

Yet, we must keep in mind the realities of the times.