Caps, Throttle, ISPs and the Philippine Digital Divide

Euphemisim is a rounabout way of saying something unpleasant or otherwise offensive. Euphemism can also be a word or set of words used to substitute another set of words to again be less offensive or unpleasant. Data capping and Data throttling is in a sense is a nice way of saying you can only use this service or resource for this amount per day.

Unlimited service provided by certain Internet Service Providers in the Philippine often suffer from very slow to almost nil connection. The so-called unlimted plan is actually very limited. To the frustration of the the ISPs customers. In fact, if you buy any of these Broadband sticks you are advised of the limitation of unlimited service.

And it is not as if premium Internet connection is not available in the Philippines. For a price you can get First world connection at your finger tips. If you can pay anything from 20,000 to 70,000 per month anyone can get premium Internet connection.

Unfortunately, we are limited by the resources available. It has come to he point that the demand has overtaken the resources of the ISPs geometrically – an increase in geometric progression – where each succeeding number is produced by multiplying the past one with a fixed non zero number – which simply means it has increased beyond twice the number and getting bigger.

The present population has grown to the point where the system cannot support it. And in times of limited resources – you contain, throttle, cap or constrict the flow of resources in this instance the Internet connection.

Of course for those who can afford to pay, they can still enjoy premium flow or services/

So why the rabid promotion on-line and off-line despite the limited resources?

Competition between the ISPs partnered with or rather slowed down by lack of progress in increasing resources.

In a free and unregulated environment normally this should foster growth driven by competition. But not in this case. I think primarily because of the population no matter how big is not yest considered enough to make the investment profitable.

Therein lies the discrepancy or discord between what is shown or promoted by the Internet Service providers and what service is actually given.

One solution to this would be for an investor or government to come in and build the infrastructure. But then this seems to be a tall order for the Philippine government or is it ?

At the least one would hope the ISPs would temper their marketing print, TV, radio and digital to something more closer to the truth. In that way their reputation problems would decrease and the customers’ expectation met.

And maybe that us why there is a strong digital divide in the Philippines. To the point we have Digital Castes in the Philippines

DIGITAL PATRICIANS:

Digital Upper Class – Those who can afford the premium equipment, access and speed to connect tot he Digital World.

DIGITAL PLEBIANS:

Digital Worker Class – Those who can get to premium equipment, access and speed to connect tot he Digital World through support of funds from business or other groups.

Digital Middle class – Those who can get to basic equipment, access and speed to connect tot he Digital World through support of funds from personal funds or credit.

Digital Have-Nots – Those who cannot even get to basic equipment, access and speed to connect to the Digital World. And this still compromises more than majority of the population.