Towards a people’s telco

Ike Señeres .

IN the United States, “public television” is owned and managed by private citizens by way of non-government organizations (NGOs). In contrast, “people’s television” here in the Philippines is owned and managed by the government. Also in the United States, “public schools” are owned and managed by private citizens by way of local school boards, albeit with some funding from federal and state sources. Again in contrast, “public schools” here in the Philippines are owned and managed by the government, with absolutely zero involvement of private citizens who are actually the parents of the “public school” students.

Back to the United States, it appears that the theory there is that the government should not have a bigger voice than the people, and therefore the government should not be able to broadcast, period. That is the reason why the United States government could only broadcast abroad by way of the Voice of America (VOA), and not domestically. Again in contrast, the government here in the Philippines owns and manages several broadcasting networks, effectively giving it a bigger voice than the people. On top of that, the government buys millions of pesos worth of airtime owned by private broadcasting companies.

As it is already happening now and as it is expected to happen more in the future, free to air broadcasting will be replaced by online streaming, either partly or fully. As it could be expected, everyone who is now broadcasting will eventually shift to streaming. What that means is that in the near or far future, both the “people” and the government will be able to stream their messages, equally that is. As everyone knows, no one really “owns” the internet, except that the private sector and the government actually “own” the means that would enable the “people” to connect to the internet. In saying this, I do not just mean the fiber optic cables, but also the Wi-Fi services.

Perhaps it is not too widely known, but the government does own existing copper wires, fiber optic cables, radio transmitters and satellite facilities that could actually be networked into what could function as a telecommunications company or telco for short. In the meantime, the government is preparing to bid out a set of frequencies that are supposed to enable one other telco to become the “third major telco player” that could compete against Globe and Smart. As it could be expected, this third element will surely be another private company again, possibly in partnership with another foreign company again, just like Globe and Smart.

A few months back, a few of my friends convinced me to look into the idea of a people’s telco, which according to them should neither be owned by the government nor the private companies. After studying this idea for several weeks, I became convinced that this idea is very much doable and highly feasible. The way to do this I think is through patchwork, meaning to put together existing means of connectivity, including copper, fiber, cable, microwave, satellite, and even TV white space. For more than twenty years now, while occupying various government positions, I have always argued that there is nothing wrong with patchwork, especially so that we are still a developing country.

The fact of the matter is, patchwork is actually being done even in the highly developed and richest countries like the United States and Japan. Actually, this is really not about shame in “wearing old clothes”, it is about pride in being able to circumvent right of way issues and expensive additional costs. Looking at this from another perspective, this is also about empowering small and medium enterprises (SMEs) so that they could compete with multinational companies (MNCs), which is what Globe and Smart really are. As it turns out, many of the possible “parts” of the patchwork are owned by SMEs in general, and by cooperatives in particular.

While we may still be years away from having a broadcasting network owned by the people, we are already close to having a streaming network that is actually just one of the services of a people’s telco. As I have planned it together with my friends, the people’s telco could simply be a consortium of SMEs and cooperatives, helping each other and sharing what they have with each other, not only to provide faster and cheaper means of connectivity to the rest of the world, but to also gain access to all the new technologies that could make their lives better, such as telemedicine, online learning and electronic commerce.

As I see it, there is no better time to do it than now, because the use of the technology is shifting from GSM and SMS to Voice Over internet Protocol (VOiP) and mobile chat. Instead of wasting our money in GSM calls and SMS, we could now use Wi-Fi connections and mobile data to connect to combined voice and chats services such as Viber, WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger. By the way, these SMEs and cooperatives could also make more money by going into new businesses such as internet cafes, co-working spaces and virtual offices. For sure, the MNCs would still be in business, but even they should help in achieving business equilibrium.

E-mail: iseneres@yahoo.com