By Tom S. Noda
Computerworld Philippines
March 25, 2010

Realizing the benefits that can be derived from using Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6), the Philippine government has created a policy draft to promote the technology’s deployment and usage in the country.

An Internet layer protocol for packet-switched Internetworks, IPv6 is referred to by several organizations as the next generation Internet protocol version – designated as the successor to version 4 or IPv4.

But unlike IPv4 which uses only 32-bit address space that can accommodate about four billion IP addresses, IPv6 uses 128-bits which translates to trillions of IP address capacities. 

Based on the policy draft released by the Commission on ICT (CICT) to Computerworld Philippines, the executive order seeks the creation of an Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) to ensure its implementation.

The task force shall be under the command of the CICT chairman with senior level officials from the Department of Science and Technology (DOST), Department of Trade and Industries (DTI), Defepartment of National Defense (DND), Department of Budget and Management (DBM), the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) as well as private sector representatives as members. 

IATF shall create an Inter-Agency Technical Working Group (IATWG), composed of government and private sector representatives. CICT shall serve as secretariat of the task force who will only cease to operate once all agencies have reported full compliance and that Internet-based network and service providers are IPv6 compliant. 

Among some of the functions of IATF on IPv6 include the formulation of an IPv6 roadmap, management of IPv6 data collection; development of baseline and metrics for measuring IPv6 usage and its benefits in the country; promotion of human capacity building including training and awareness on IPv6; development of a database of IPv6 compliance that shall me made available for use by broadband providers, entities and local government units.

Denis Villorente, director of the Advanced Science and Technology Institute (ASTI) of the Philippines, said with the approval of the policy, the next administration scheduled in June 2010 could also make use of it as a solution to the IPv4 exhaustion and gain national benefits for the country. ASTI is a research and development institute under the DOST.

The policy draft’s creation was derived from the series of CIO forums conducted by CICT as well as with the latter’s engagement with APNIC, ASTI and the local academe.

BUSINESS CONTINUITY ISSUE
According to Miwa Fujii, senior IPv6 program specialist of the Asia Pacific Network Information Centre (APNIC), who served as speaker in this morning’s IPv6 forum held at CICT in Quezon City, the IPv4 problem has now become a “business continuity issue.”

Miwa reported there is only 9% of IPv4 addresses remaining which shows the latter to be a finite resource while the demand for more IP addresses keeps on growing.

“The remaining 9% of IPv4 is not enough and IPv6 is the best solution currently available for this problem,” Miwa said, adding IPv4’s depletion could finally happen by year 2012 or 2014.

“The usage of IPv6 is limitless and even non-computing devices such as aircons and cars, can be given IP addresses,” Miwa claimed.

And quoting a report by APNIC, Miwa said using IPv6 will enable the Internet to continue to grow to millions of times of its present size while avoiding adding a level of complexity that would increase costs to network administrators.

Meanwhile, Villorente announced that ASTI is just waiting for funding from the DOST as to the opening of the local IPv6 laboratory which will be open to organizations that want to test IPv6 equipments and where more trainings for IPv6 engineers can take place.

Villorente said ASTI has always been an IPv6 advocate since the late 1990s by being involved with the AI3 and SOI-Asia project of the WIDE Project of Japan.

Possibly Related Posts:

• Check Point clears the path to Web 2.0 application control
• Water cooling returns to IBM mainframe
• Microsoft still mum on programs prone to DLL hijacking attacks
• Mobile data traffic set to soar
• More IT managers plan to spend less, Oracle struggles with users, survey finds

By Tom S. Noda
Computerworld Philippines
March 9, 2010

Failing to achieve a permanent entity status, the Commission on Information and Communications Technology (CICT) is now setting up policies that will guide the country’s next president to advance on ICT developments.
 
“What we really want to do in the remaining months is to put in place the policies that will guide the next administration,” said Ray Anthony Roxas-Chua, chairman of CICT, in an exclusive interview with Computerworld Philippines.

CICT is coming off from an advocacy loss in the Senate recently, with the death of the bills mandating the creation of the Department of ICT (DICT) and Cybercrime Law. And since it remained only a commission under the executive order of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, the next president can easily do away with CICT. Arroyo’s term is scheduled to end on June 10, 2010.

Roxas-Chua said it’s up to the next administration if it wants to follow or not the policies CICT is now crafting.

“We want to leave these policies so that developments will continue. At least, we won’t have to worry about the longevity or permanent nature of CICT,” he explained, adding that historically, parts of CICT have been going in and out like its separation and reunion with the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) and Telecommunications Office (Telof).

Roxas-Chua said CICT’s focus remains consistent on the cyber services and business process outsourcing (BPO) sector, e-government (e-gov), capital development, and also infrastructure development.

However, he said CICT should come up with a new flow chart or new structure so as to fully indicate the other agencies that were brought under it like the NTC and Telof. As a commission, he shared it was “difficult for CICT to create a comprehensive ICT plan.”

Appointed by President Arroyo in 2007, Roxas-Chua said CICT has achieved a lot of its targets when it comes to projects implemented and advocacy for ICT based on awareness. However, a lot more developments could have taken place if CICT was a department.

“I think we could have done more if we had a stronger entity. One of the challenges we had was we didn’t have the infrastructure component until this year,” Roxas-Chua said.  “NTC and Telof were only brought back to us in early 2009 and so we weren’t able to accomplish anything in the first year and a half.”

CICT is now reportedly trying to catch up with its universal broadband strategy and other issues being tackled by NTC.

Roxas-Chua said if only CICT was a department, “all ICT projects of government would have been cohesive — aligned with the central national ICT platform.” 

Yet Roxas-Chua reported CICT is doing well when it comes to projects among schools and is now in the process of connecting many of them by providing broadband connectivity. It is now on the stage of procuring satellite connectivity for schools that have no available alternatives.

And on the e-government side, he said CICT is strengthening its e-government fund guideline by working with the Canadian government which is helping them revamp the guidelines, for the latter to become more efficient and hopefully translate to more successful IT projects in government.

Roxas-Chua added CICT will be rolling out the new batch of computer laboratory and will also promote the country as the “offshoring destination of choice.” The commission’s officers plan to go to Germany, Australia, Singapore and in the US soon to promote the Philippines.

“The industry grew to about 20% last year. So hopefully this year with the recession finally coming to an end, it will be back to a normal run rate of 25%,” Roxas-Chua said.  

President Arroyo recently reported that revenues from the country’s BPO sector is expected to exceed US $9 billion this year compared to its record of US $7 billion revenues in 2009.

Possibly Related Posts:

• Check Point clears the path to Web 2.0 application control
• Water cooling returns to IBM mainframe
• Microsoft still mum on programs prone to DLL hijacking attacks
• Mobile data traffic set to soar
• More IT managers plan to spend less, Oracle struggles with users, survey finds

By Tom S. Noda
Computerworld Philippines
January 28, 2010

Supporters of the pending Senate Bill 2546 which intends to create the Department of ICT (DICT) said the interpolation request of Sen. Mar Roxas is the only thing that’s holding the bill’s enactment into law.

And with only three legislation days left, image of the longtime dream for the government department starts to fade.

Indeed, the senator’s request was to interrupt, to speak about the pending bill, but many didn’t expect that such interruption will keep the DICT bill hanging.

CICT chief Ray Anthony Roxas-Chua III, accompanied by the bill’s supporting groups recalled on Wednesday that Roxas registered to interpolate on the bill since September 2009 along with Sen. Miriam Defensor Santiago. The female senator already gave her piece a few days after registration but Roxas remained silent on the issue until last Wednesday’s session.

The House of Representatives passed HB 4300 for the purpose of a DICT two years ago in 2008.

For their 6th straight session day in the Senate since the sessions resumed last Jan. 18, CICT officials and the bill’s supporters could only share deep sighs – as each session would end with almost no development on the pending bill.

Together with CICT, the supporting groups that religiously attend the Senate sessions were the Business Processing Association of the Philippines (BPA/P), Call Center Association of the Philippines (CCAP), Game Developers Association of the Philippines (GDAP) and the CIO Forum (CIOF).

The bill’s supporters expressed doubt on the senator’s reason in postponing his interpolation on the bill, since months have already passed and there is still no word from him on the issue.

Roxas was present during the senate session’s roll call on Wednesday but immediately left, missing anew his chance to interpolate on the DICT bill which he requested himself last year.

OPEN FOR ADJUSTMENTS
Chua told Computerworld Philippines that CICT is open to adjust some of the clauses in the pending bill if Roxas has any objections. Yet the problem stems from having no discussion on the matter at all.

“We’re open for any adjustments or removal of clauses in the bill, but first of all, we need to know what they are. We need to discuss,” Chua said, noting the DICT bill is in the period of interpolation anyway.

Proposed since 2001, critics of DICT’s creation described it as “redundant” and a “bloat to the bureaucracy.”

Chua, however, claimed that most of CICT’s budget today goes to the salaries of employees, yet the commission’s function is almost like a department, as it caters to “half of the communications function” of the Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC). CICT recently regained power over the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) as ordered by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

If DICT is approved, it will take over the National Computer Center (NCC), Telecommunications Office (Telof), and the Communications Planning Service division.

HOPE LINGERS
Chua and supporters of the bill said they plan to push for DICT and Cybercrime bills until the last session day of the Senate’s legislative calendar, which will most likely be on Feb. 5, as it marks the beginning of the campaign period for national elections.

The CICT chief said with only three session days remaining, he’s asking for the “full presence” of DICT supporters, as the two ICT bills will have to be approved on 2nd and 3rd reading and reconciled with the House versions in a bicameral conference within that span of time.

“Many bills were tackled today but unfortunately, our bills were not among them,” Chua said Wednesday. “It’s looking pretty bleak, but we’re not giving up yet.”

Chua said if the ICT bills don’t pass in the Senate, it will all be back to zero in the lower house in Congress in the next administration.

Possibly Related Posts:

• Check Point clears the path to Web 2.0 application control
• Water cooling returns to IBM mainframe
• Microsoft still mum on programs prone to DLL hijacking attacks
• Mobile data traffic set to soar
• More IT managers plan to spend less, Oracle struggles with users, survey finds

By Tom S. Noda
Computerworld Philippines
July 27, 2009

“Let us have a department of ICT (DICT)!” was President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s clear command in her last state-of-the-nation address (SONA) on Monday to sustain and improve further the local BPO (business process outsourcing) and tourism sectors in the Philippines.

Speaking over a live nationwide TV broadcast at the House of Representatives, president Macapagal-Arroyo directly dedicated her message to congressmen, for the country to finally have a DICT. It is a development that has long been clamored for in the past seven years.

The president gave the order after stressing how the local BPO sector in the Philippines performed well against global recession. She said unlike the electronics industry, the BPO sector proved to be resilient with the ongoing global economic crisis.

“In the past if the electronics sector grew, today we’re creating wealth by developing the BPO and tourism sectors as additional engines of growth,” Macapagal-Arroyo said. “Electronics and other manufactured exports rise and fall with the state of the world economy but BPO remains resilient.”

She noted that with earnings of $6 billion and employment of 600,000 “the BPO phenomenon stays eloquently of our competitiveness and productivity.”

The president cited that from year 2008 to 2009, the Philippines remained to be “the only country among Asian economies that didn’t shrink.”

“According to Moody’s [Manual], our state of the nation is a strong economy,” Macapagal-Arroyo said.

She added her administration is the only one in Philippine history that invested three times more than any administration on technical and skills training, benefiting present professionals on the voice and non-voice BPO work such as medical transcriptionists.

The president also included in her SONA that her administration is now taking action on calls against telecommunications firms about the missing cellphone loads of subscribers.

“I am asking the national telecommunications commission to take action on calls against missing cellphone loads,” she said in Filipino.

However, the president expressed celebration with the 2010 automated poll project of the Commission on Elections (Comelec), which was legislated by congress almost 10 years ago in December 1997 through the enactment of Republic Act No. 8436 or the Election Modernization Act, authorizing Comelec for the first time to use an automated election system.

“The 2010 automated polls. We got it! Thank you Congress!” the president said.

Macapagal-Arroyo’s DICT request to congressmen signaled her approval for the transformation of the current Commission on Information and Communications Technology (CICT) into a full-blown department, manifesting a command to congress to approve the pending DICT bills. CICT’s existence is only under the executive order (EO) of the president.

Senator Edgardo Angara, head of the Congressional Commission on Science and Technology and Engineering (COMSTE), said in past interviews that the conversion of CICT into a government department is a must in order to have “focus” on the issue of policy direction of related government agencies such as the Department of Science and technology (DOST), Telecommunications Office (Telof), National Telecommunications Commission (NTC), and National Computer Center (NCC).

CICT chairman Ray Anthony Roxas-Chua III, earlier denied that there would be a “bloating of the bureaucracy” once the commission becomes a department, saying there will just be a merger of existing agencies.

“We’re not even asking for an additional budget. But what we’re expecting is a synergy of the agencies to focus on areas that needed attention,” he said.

Roxas-Chua said another concern on why CICT needs to become a department is that the commission’s existence is fragile since it only relies under the president’s order or EO.

“We’re only under the president’s EO and the next administration can always dispose us anytime they want to,” he said, adding there is less than a year to go before the 2010 national elections.

He added CICT currently lacks people for its projects due to rationalization, and Telof with its 4,000 employees will certainly be a big boost in their manpower needs.

“The Telof with its 4,000 people also has regional offices, but due to the advancement of mobile technology their relevance is slowly decreasing,” Roxas-Chua said.

According to a recent study by Ovum, the creation of a DICT in the Philippines could rally the local ICT economy around a maximum of four capability areas such as medical and legal transcription, engineering, software-as-a-service (SaaS), including building businesses around open source technology.

Possibly Related Posts:

• Check Point clears the path to Web 2.0 application control
• Water cooling returns to IBM mainframe
• Microsoft still mum on programs prone to DLL hijacking attacks
• Mobile data traffic set to soar
• More IT managers plan to spend less, Oracle struggles with users, survey finds

By Tom S. Noda
Computerworld Philippines
July 4, 2006

National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) chief Roland Solis said the commission is ready to defend before Congress the amount of license fees it charged to four telecommunications companies to operate third-generation or 3G services.

Representatives Simeon Kintanar (Cebu, 2nd district, NPC) and Danilo Suarez (Quezon, 3rd district, LP), chairpersons of the House of Representatives’ committees on ICT and Oversight, respectively, earlier expressed doubts on whether the NTC followed the law in granting 3G licenses last December.

NTC chairman Roland Solis said in an interview that the commission is ready to defend the amount of 3G user spectrum fees it charged to service providers Smart Communications, Globe Telecom, Digital Telecommunications (Digitel), and newcomer CURE (Connectivity Unlimited Resources, Enterprises, Inc.).

The commission reportedly earned P2.3 billion but according to lawmakers, the amount is significantly less than what is charged in other countries that have rolled out 3G and that the government could have earned at least P15 billion if bidding was conducted.

Solis added the NTC is likewise ready to defend its decision to reject the applications of five other service providers namely, Bayan Telecommunications Inc., AZ Network Communications Inc., Pacific Wireless, Media Telephony and Next Mobile.

In its decision, the NTC ruled that the above-mentioned operators are “unqualified” to deliver 3G services. Since the number of qualified applicants is less than the five spectrum allotments, NTC argues there is no need to conduct bidding.

Reps. Kintanar and Suarez, along with other members of their respective committees, asked the NTC to consider reviewing the license fees paid by four players to determine if these were “fair and reasonable.”

“We are ready to deliberate on it but we just don’t want to be discourteous to the congressmen because we are still being investigated. But we are ready,” Solis said in reference to the license fees.

According to him, the commission is currently reviewing the rates it is charging for the entire frequency spectrum, not just 3G.

“We are thinking if there is a need for us to increase the fees at this time, not just on 3G but on all spectrum usages like UMTS, WiMax, and Wi-Fi,” he said.

Regarding the request for review of qualifications of 3G applicants, Solis said NTC has already done the “groundwork” but is yet to deliberate on it.

Asked about Suarez’s earlier warning that NTC officials could face graft charges if it does not abolish the 3G licenses, Solis refused to comment and added, “I can’t comment on that. I would rather wait for the (committee) report.”

Email the author at tsnoda@computerworld.com.ph.

Possibly Related Posts:

• Check Point clears the path to Web 2.0 application control
• Software blades boosts virtual security management
• Security gateway extends software blades to the edge of the network
• Lawson forays to cloud apps, gives users power of choice
• Oracle unveils social, user-centric update to BPM middleware