Phl ready for cloud services despite infra bottlenecks – UN agency

MANILA, Philippines - The Philippines is among the countries that meet the minimum requirements for basic cloud services but bottlenecks in terms of download speed, upload speed and latency are seen to prevent it from being ready for more advanced cloud services, a United Nations (UN) agency said.

In a report titled Information Economy 2013, The Cloud Economy and Developing Countries, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) said the Philippines is one of 61 economies that meet at least all the proposed minimum requirements for basic cloud services.

Citing the Cisco Global Cloud Readiness tool, the UNCTAD said the minimum requirements for basic cloud services such as single player gaming, email or instant messaging, streaming of basic video or music, Web conferencing, Web browsing and Internet telephony are a download speed of 750 kilobits per second (kbps), upload speed of 250 kbps and latency or the time it will take to access an application of 160 millisecond (ms).

Aside from the Philippines, other countries in the Southeast Asian region which meet the minimum requirement for basic cloud services are Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia and Thailand.

While the Philippines meets the minimum requirements for basic cloud services, the report showed it faces bottlenecks in terms of the benchmarks of the download speed, upload speed and latency for more advanced cloud services.

For intermediate cloud services such as high definition video streaming, multi-player gaming, online shopping, social networking and video conferencing, the minimum requirements are a download speed of 751 to 2,500 kbps, upload speed of 251 to 1,000 kbps and latency of 100 to 159 ms.

For advanced cloud services such as three-dimensional video streaming, high definition video conferencing, streaming super high definition video, connected education or medicine, group video calling and virtual office, the minimum requirements are a download speed greater than 2,500 kbps, upload speed higher than 1,500 kbps and latency less than 100 ms.

The report showed that 43 economies meet the minimum requirements for advanced cloud services. The group includes the US, United Kingdom, Japan, Republic of Korea, Malaysia, Singapore and Vietnam.

Meanwhile, 34 countries failed to meet at least one of the benchmarks proposed for basic cloud services.

The UNCTAD said as most enterprises are expected to be using cloud facilities and services and most information technology (IT) and Web applications are seen to be delivered on the cloud over the next two decades, policymakers and business leaders need to look at the opportunities and potential risks of the technology.

“This new paradigm has the capacity to reduce capital expenditure on IT, improve operational efficiency (by introducing new administrative and service-delivery models), enable new applications, and improve customer service,” it said.

“A general shift in business and government data and data handling to the cloud, it has been argued, could thereby stimulate efficiency, productivity and economic growth,” it added.

As such, it said governments need to carefully assess the current situation in their countries, to identify how best to make countries ready to leverage the opportunities offered by the cloud and to address concerns associated with increased cloud adoption.

The UNCTAD said governments should address the challenge in infrastructure by improving the provision of reliable broadband service as well as ensuring reliable access to power.

It also said governments have to review current legislation to see if it adequately addresses relevant areas for cloud adoption and to begin to consider ways of further improving the legal framework.