Escudero: NTC should start ‘fixing’ poor Internet service in PH

Sen. Francis ‘Chiz’ Escudero (Photo from Escudero’s Facebook page)

MANILA –Senator Francis “Chiz” Escudero called on the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) to immediately fix the poor Internet services in the Philippines by starting with directing telecommunication companies to setup routing Internet data in the country instead of doing so in other countries.

Escudero believed that using the Philippine Open Internet Exchange (PHOpenIX), the Philippines’ own unified Internet exchange utility, Internet speed in the country would speed up.

“The NTC should start cracking the whip and fix the system immediately. It cannot be ‘business as usual’ anymore. Let’s do away with the mentality of just accepting the present situation and start doing something about it,” he said in a statement.

With the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) being the country’s largest telco, Escudero urged NTC to persuade PLDT to initiate connecting to own Internet exchange point.

“PLDT does not want to connect to PHOpenIX. Instead, it connects to the Hong Kong Internet Exchange (HKIX) through its private Vitro Internet Exchange (VIX). I find this questionable because routing data overseas and then terminating here in the country takes a lot longer than routing and terminating data flow within the country,” Escudero said.

“Why doesn’t PLDT just connect to PHOpenIX? PLDT is the biggest telco in the country. Its sheer size, and the influence it wields in the information and technology industry, could very well change the IT landscape overnight. But by refusing to connect to PHOpenIX, PLDT is holding the country’s Internet world hostage,” he added.

Escudero expressed dismay over NTC’s lack of urgent action on the current issue.

“The problem is that government agencies that are supposed to monitor these telcos and help consumers don’t seem to feel the urgency of the situation,” he said.

It can be recalled that Internet providers Ookla and Akamai recently released Internet speed reports, which showed that the Philippines has not been at par with other countries in terms of Internet speed.