Cayetano: Gov't must remove barriers to broadband access

Senate minority leader Alan Peter Cayetano said the government should fast-track the advancement in broadband technology in the country to help create jobs, particularly for the marginalized sectors. He said the benefits of broadband technology are enormous, from enabling young minds to explore educational technologies, empowering women through information and skills knowledge. “There are still critical issues that must be addressed to enable marginalized people to lift themselves out from poverty and illiteracy through the Internet,” said Cayetano. He stressed that the government should make broadband affordable through regulation and market forces so that it amounts to less than 5 percent of average monthly income. Cayetano noted that limiting market entry and tax services are primary obstacles that government must remove soon. The minority leader said while legislative and regulatory frameworks will be established to make broadband technology more accessible, particularly in many hard-to-reach places of the archipelagic Philippines, the government should take drastic measures to address the country’s consistent low rating in the global broadband speed. n the latest broadband speed survey of netindex.com, the Philippines ranked 133rd out of the 170 countries surveyed with an embarrassing Internet speed of 1.73 Mbps. Other neighboring Asian countries ranked much higher with South Korea coming in at second with 30.33 Mbps, Singapore at 10th with 18.83 Mbps, and Japan at 14th with 17.80 Mbps. This concern has serious implication in today’s inefficient Internet service to the business sector particularly for the developing business process outsourcing (BPO) industry in the country, he said.