With the release of the 19 mostly-injured, detained and falsely-accused workers workers, advocates and journalists — NutriAsia and […]
Category: Consumer Rights
For a metropolis with run-down trains, horrible traffic, and “choosy” taxi drivers, the app-based Uber and GrabTaxi services […]
Aug. 14, 2015 Dear Senators: On behalf of TXTPower.org Inc., the Computer Professionals Union (CPU), the Advocates of […]
No, the MRT is not owned by the government. It is owned by MRT Corp. in a Public-Private Partnership project […]
(UPDATED AUG. 2, 2015) Defying the challenges of income inequality and awful quality of internet and mobile services, […]
Consumers, rejoice! The Department of Justice (DOJ) released on Dec. 12, 2014 an Advisory Opinion clearly siding with Filipino internet users against the telco practice of imposing data caps and speed throttling through so-called “fair usage” policies (FUP).
The DOJ’s Advisory Opinion practically laid out the legal basis for suing the telcos over the arbitrary “limits” they impose on subscribers who subscribe to their “unlimited” internet offers, and called on the public to file complaints with the telcos themselves and with agencies such as the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC).
In other words, there is no legal basis for data caps and throttling, and there is a legal basis to complain and demand the delivery of promised internet speeds.
I’m joining the battle for the internet today, Sept. 10, to protect net neutrality. You should too. We […]
The technical working group formed by the Department of Trade and Industry has released a draft final report on the application of DTI rules on the requirement of sales permit for all online sales promotions.
In the interest of transparency and to allow as many bloggers to check and react to the draft final report, I am sharing the document in full:
Together with colleague Delwin Keasberry, a.k.a. @BruneiTweet and the man behind Projek Brunei, we led a master class with the same title at the ASEAN100 Leadership Forum on Sept. 29, 2011 at the Shangrila Hotel in Makati City, Philippines.
Here is the presentation I shared at the master class:
Yahoo! Philippines and market research company Nielsen recently released the results of its Net Index 2011 study which, among others, “a shift from shared to private access” in how Filipinos connect to the internet.
Net Index 2011 is the third, consecutive study by Yahoo! and Nielsen that dwells on Filipinos’ internet habits.
Global market research company Nielsen today made a pre-release of its Southeast Asia Digital Consumer Report which says, among others, that “one in three consumers in the Philippines are now accessing the Internet, with younger demographics significantly more likely to get online than older generations.”
The Office of the President announced the abolition of the Commission on Information and Communications Technology (CICT) today […]
A number of Filipino netizens went ballistic today after reading news about the National Bureau of Investigation’s proposal to have all laptops and other internet devices registered as part of government’s efforts to purportedly curb cybercrime.
The laptop registry plan, first reported by GMA News and which follows a similar proposal covering mobile phone SIM cards, has attracted the choicest expletives from Twitter users as we could see in these curated tweets:
While Filipino netizens are pressing government, Congress included, for action so we could finally have #betterinternet, some Members of Congress want to do something else: Launch a crackdown on vaguely-defined “cybercrimes”.
Lawmakers have not given up on their dangerous project and on Feb. 2, the House ICT Committee holds a meeting to tackle seven “cybercrime” prevention bills that are pending in the current Congress.
Smart and Globe are fighting over the title of having the “fastest mobile broadband service”. As they fight themselves in the media, I thought that perhaps its better to make my own study of the three competing mobile broadband products.
To do the tests, I made use of a Compaq Presario notebook computer running on Windows 7 Ultimate, a single openline Huawei E156C dongle/modem and a generic Mobile Partner software dialer to connect to the internet. I got the SmartBro SIM pack from a package I bought last August. I also bought a Sun Broadband Wireless prepaid SIM SIM pack for P50 and a Globe Tattoo SIM pack for P40.
More and more Filipinos have again gone wireless to connect to the internet. Recently, the three major wireless telcos have pushed down the cost of their wireless broadband modems or dongles to as low as P888 in a common effort to outsell competitors. The competition has gone so fierce that rivals Smart and Globe have come out with ads claiming their respective wireless broadband service is faster. Curiously, both did not include Sun in their ads.
This post and the next one(s) hope to provide an independent take on the wireless broadband services of Globe, Smart and Sun Cellular.
Soon after turning over to the Philippine National Red Cross the last check from TXTPower’s fundraising campaign for typhoon Ondoy’s victims, I received a call from Mr. Mario Shiliashki, general manager of PayPal Southeast Asia & India.
Mr. Shiliashki told he was “reaching out on behalf of the company” to apologize for the incident and assured the company’s respect and support for the efforts of Filipinos and our friends abroad to provide relief aid to victims of the typhoons Ondoy and Pepeng. He said that what had happened would help improve Paypal’s processes and procedures.
Due to some technical problems, the TXTPower website has gone awry today. I’ll be posting here our press release regarding the outcome of today’s hearing held by the House Committee on Ways and Means regarding the text tax.
Consumers score victory as House panel reconsiders vote on text tax
Besieged by opposition from all sides, the House Ways and Means Committee took back its Sept. 8 vote in favor of the still-unnumbered substitute House Bill imposing a five-centavo tax on text messages and all other mobile phone services, national and international.
“This is a victory for consumers. We hope the House will totally stop it and archive it, along with all previous text tax bills since 2001,” said TXTPower president Anthony Ian Cruz.
[LOL UPDATE, Aug. 18: HP called me up at home with this message — The notebook’s LCD has been replaced and the notebook is ready for pickup. But I already got it yesterday, right? LOL]
After a long 27-day wait, the HP Service Center in Makati City called me up this afternoon with good news I have long waited to hear: My notebook is ready for delivery and its busted LCD screen replaced. I told HP to ditch the delivery because I will instead pick it up this same afternoon, which I did and which made typing this post possible.
GMA7‘s Sandra Aguinaldo interviewed me yesterday over proposals to reimpose a cap on superprofits of telcos.
The network’s 24 Oras newscast aired this report last night:
For the latest Philippine news stories and videos, visit GMANews.TV
Later in the evening,
Consumer advocacy group TXTPower held a press conference today to demand lower prices and the banning of spam, along with the extension of prepaid load expiry as solutions to “vanishing loads”.
We are not impressed by the new circular. More should be done by government.
Nielsen Media presented anew on Thursday night the highlights of the Yahoo-Nielsen study titled Net Index 2009 Philippines which is touted as “the first in-depth media study of internet users in urban Philippines”.
Jay Bautista, executive director of Nielsen Media, presented the results of the study last night before members of IMMAP, journalists and bloggers at a bar at Bonifacio High Street, The Fort.
Download the highlights of the study as presented by Bautista through the link below: