Romy Neri is right about VoIP

Contrary to what Romy Neri’s been telling people, I do not personally dislike him. After all, we were in UP at about the same time, might have even been classmates in some subjects and we were in the same ROTC platoon as Manny Villar. We even crossed paths briefly while working for PNOC. It is just that since he assumed the NEDA post, he has simply underwhelmed (if I may create a new word) me with things he said and did. Up until now...

But lo and behold... Romy’s saying the right things about VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) and it is my hope that he is speaking for the President as well. Neri supports the further deregulation of telecom to encourage greater competition, especially VoIP. Minimizing government regulation, Neri said, is in recognition of the role of today’s telecom industry in providing essential "infrastructure" to promote growth, employment and investment.

So, Neri wants even more of a good thing. "To further spur growth, investment and jobs, we are supporting the full deregulation of Voice over Internet Protocol," he is quoted as saying. VoIP is a technology that allows callers to use the Internet, eliminating the need for traditional phone lines to complete calls. VoIP dramatically reduces the costs of long distance phone calls. NEDA estimates that costs of current international calls can be reduced by 75 percent, from 40 to about 10 US cents per minute.

VoIP is basically, a telephony service that lets you place and receive phone calls over a cable or DSL modem connection. Consumer VoIP services started springing up a few years ago, tapping into the growing number of homes connected to the Internet by fast broadband connections.

Here is how it works. Sign up with a VoIP service provider, and you get a little box that plugs into your cable modem or broadband router. That box talks over the Internet to the VoIP provider’s servers, which in turn link to the public switched telephone network to connect calls to traditional landline and cellular phones. Plug a regular phone into your VoIP box and you get a dial tone, just like traditional phone service.

NEDA lamented in its news release that VoIP investments aren’t being encouraged in our environment. "The main barrier to VoIP is the unclear rules on who can provide VoIP." Telecom companies insist that only they can provide voice service because they have congressional franchises. Internet and other value-added service providers insist that since VoIP is a data service that should fall within the VAS licensing, not requiring a legislative franchise.

Unclear rules result in foregone investments and jobs. Potential VoIP providers have been wary to invest and provide the service to consumers.

The National Telecommunications Commission is conducting a series of hearings to determine the applicable rules on VoIP. The NEDA chief insists that deregulating VoIP is a key component of the ten-point agenda of Ate Glo to build the digital infrastructure.

This is certainly a refreshing stance from a Cabinet member, who hopefully is speaking not just for himself but for the administration.Government regulators must realize that for the country to fully benefit from new telecom and information technology, it is necessary for them to hold their usual punches and think hard about the right regulatory stance to take.

The rule of thumb is, the least government interference possible. Even the new Cabinet level position on ICT seems to be trigger happy in exercising its regulatory powers to the hilt, as it tries to reinvent things that already work like the dotPh registry. Hopefully, NEDA is going to be more influential in guiding government’s regulatory agencies in ICT to let the private sector combatants settle their differences through better customer benefits and services rather than old fashioned regulation.

UP Funding

My column on the financial woes of PGH and the problems it is having getting donated equipment it needs out of Customs, sparked a reaction from an old family friend, former Judge Federico "Jun" Alikpala. It seems, UP’s money problems will be the primary concern of its new president. Actually, UP’s in a state of financial crisis even now. It would be interesting to see how fast its new president can turn things around. Here is Jun’s e-mail.

When the UP was created a century ago, the concept was to make it a self-sustaining institution to ensure its independence. Hence, substantial tracts of land (Basilan, Quezon, Laguna, etc.) and properties were conveyed to it, and this process continued even for some years after. The UP was supposed to be able to make good use of the properties considering the expertise of the faculty.

The PGH and related units were made adjuncts not only because of the needed tie-up with the UP College of Medicine, Nursing, Dentistry, etc. but because the anticipated income of the university was expected to be able to take care of the needs of the hospital units. However, somewhere along the way, income did not eventually cover expenses, forcing it to resort to legislated appropriations.

But the subsidy just kept on mounting, with the PGH taking close to a third of the amount. It had been obvious, even long before the first students’ demonstrations were ever initiated in UP, that increase in tuition fees as a source for the deficit would have been foolhardy. But expenses kept on mounting and faculty was being lost to the private schools due to salary issues.

Beset with her administration’s problems with the budget, GMA resolved to reduce the UP’s share of the budget starting this year and progressively over the next few years until it comes down to zero. UP just has to learn how to make use of its assets.

Realizing that most fund-raising measures would take time to gel, and in the face of the pressing urgent needs for funding, GMA thought of having UP’s affairs managed by somebody knowledgeable on early returns out of the assets to stave off demonstrations, riots, etc. which might spill over to another EDSA incident.

President GMA saw in Ambassador to UK Ed Espiritu as the man for it and prevailed on him to take a crack at the position. Since embassy socials were not really his cup of tea, Ed acceded because he also had been a member of the BOR continuously for more than 15 years in all. Unfortunately, after three attempts which had resulted in six-six votings, somebody who initially voted for Espiritu moved to the other camp to break the impasse and Dr. Roman was declared elected.

The unfortunate thing is that Dr. Roman’s programs call for time in order to provide the urgently-needed resources. Leasing out the vacant portions of the Diliman campus, even with a requirement of substantial amount of advance rentals, would be far from sufficient. Besides, the students would again cry against the "commercialization".

Income from contracting out faculty skills would not even be a drop in the bucket. Soliciting donations from the UP alumni abroad would not suffice particularly if the donors would make it a condition that the corpus of the donations be kept intact and only the income from it be used to defray the university’s expenses - the usual conditions attendant to donations to US universities and similar institutions.

Sen. (then, UP president) Ed Angara had successfully conducted such a solicitation campaign and, although the total amount generated was unprecedented, the individual amounts thereof were not substantial enough. The donors had also been persuaded to agree that their donations be permitted for use in immediate acquisitions of books and equipment, increases in salaries of faculty, etc.

The substantial reduction in this year’s appropriations for UP, inclusive of PGH, etc., is already being felt with a realization that increases in salaries this year 2005 appear out of the question, thereby accelerating losses of faculty members. Ateneo and La Salle have been successful in weaning away Business/ Eco faculty with offers of 2.5-3.0 times their UP salaries. Newly-emerging mining companies are now knocking on the doors of the geology and geo-physical units.

The PGH staff has been informed that their patients may have to provide more of their medicines and be treated with the use of facilities and equipment fit for the junkyard. In spite of these, equipment will inevitably still have to be purchased, VAT included. The pot has gone beyond the simmering stage.

Aanhin pa ang damo kung patay na ang kabayo? Where does UP go from here?

Honey Pot

PhilStar reader Franklin Panahon sent this one in.

A young woman dressed in shorts had been taking golf lessons. She had just started playing her first round of golf when she suffered a bee sting. Her pain was so intense that she decided to return to the clubhouse for help and to complain.

Her golf pro saw her come into the clubhouse and asked, "Why are you back in so early? What’s wrong?"

"I was stung by a bee," she said.

"Where?" he asked.

"Between the first and second hole", she replied.

He nodded knowingly and said, "Then your stance is too wide."

Boo Chanco’s e-mail address is [email protected]