The Unlawyer

Mike, Yuga, and the Pinoy Problogger, not to mention other bloggers, must have spilled their morning coffee on their keyboards today at what at first glance appears to be an ill-conceived proposal by the National Telecommunications Commission
(NTC), the Philippines’ telco watchdog, to regulate all forms of Internet content by classifying it as a value-added service (VAS) and charge fees accordingly.

I won’t discuss the Constitutional implications of such a policy, in the way that it has been framed by its early commenters, but first, what did the Commission’s representative say that sparked this row?

“In the preliminary hearing of a draft memorandum circular on value added services, Edgardo Cabarrios, NTC director for common carrier and authorization department, said contents of Web sites such as Yahoo could be classified as a value added service in so far as its delivery is concerned.

““Telecom is delivery of content. When content is delivered it becomes a telecom service,” Cabarrios said.”

I suppose Mr. Cabarios was referring to the Commission’s draft circular on value-added services [PDF file - Ed.], so let’s see what is actually covered by this proposed rule:

• Messaging services – includes all types of messaging services such as short messaging service (not more than 160 characters), messaging service (more than 160 characters), Multimedia messaging service, unified messaging service, etc.
• Audio Conferencing
• Audio and video conferencing
• Voice mail service
• Electronic mail service
• Information service – includes all types of information delivered to/accessed by the users/subscribers, e.g. road traffic information, financial information, visa application information, etc.
• Gaming services except gambling
• Applications service – includes all types of applications delivered to/ accessed by the users/subscribers, e.g. mobile banking, electronic payments, point of sale service, etc.
• Content and Program service – includes all types of contents delivered to/ accessed by the users/subscribers such as music, ring tones, logos, video clips, etc.
• Audiotext service
• Domain name Hosting service
• Facsimile service
• IP multicasting service
• Virtual Private Network service
• PBX hosting service

If approved, the NTC will charge a PHP 300 filing fee per application and PHP 6,000 for the first five services registered. Small change for a multinational but way out of reach for the great majority of Pinoy bloggers.

But is the brewing hysteria justified? Apparently, the purpose of this proposed regulation is to “protect the consumer.”

“The NTC said the draft was designed to protect consumers from sudden service rate increases and to promote healthy competition among industry players.”

From the context of the reports I’ve read about this issue, as well as from the text of the proposed regulation itself, I think Mr. Cabarios spoke way, way out of line, as these stories suggest that the NTC will only regulate those companies that charge customers a fee to access the VAS, or those services whose supply is already regulated by some other government agency, and not those services freely accessible to end-users.

So let’s all calm down and wait until the Commission clarifies itself.