Angara urges national broadband policy

The Senate Science and Technology Committee pressed Congress Saturday to pass a bill creating a Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT), a Cabinet post, to meet the global broadband targets set by the Broadband Commission on Digital Development (BCDD) of the United Nations (UN). Sen. Edgardo J. Angara, committee chairman, made the appeal after noting that the BCDD recently agreed on a set of four new “ambitious, but achievable” targets that both developed and developing countries should attain by 2015. Angara said the BCDD had stated that all countries should have a national broadband policy where broadband is included in universal access definitions and where strategies are outlined on how entry-level broadband services could be made more affordable. He said BCDD targets also require that in four years, 40 percent of all households in developing countries should have Internet access. The Internet penetration rate should equal 50 percent of the population, said Angara, a former University of the Philippines (UP) president. “For the country to meaningfully participate in the ICT-driven future, we have to ensure that broadband Internet is widely available and affordable to all,” said Angara, also chairman of the Congressional Commission on Science, Technology and Engineering (COMSTE). The former Senate president said “a task like this isn’t easy and requires close coordination between ICT stakeholders.” “We are already making inroads in enhancing our broadband infrastructure. But government needs to step up and create a DICT that will become the focal point of such efforts,’’ he pointed out. Studies from Nielsen show that only one out of three Filipinos — roughly 33 percent of the population currently has access to the Internet, he said.