Globe's "Fair Use Policy"

[mangkulas03]

Reactions please. Violent or non-violent. Crowdsourcing opinions on this policy. Thanks!

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Globe adopts Internet 'fair use' policy
By Paolo Montecillo
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 21:06:00 04/03/2011

Filed Under: Telecommunications Services, Internet, business, Consumer Issues

MANILA, Philippines—Globe Telecom is cracking down on abusive Internet users who hog all the available bandwidth, in the process deteriorating the services for majority of users in the company's network.

In a statement issued Saturday, the company said it has adopted a "fair-use" policy that would put a cap on the amount of content such as songs and videos that consumers could download for their personal use.

In a recent internal analysis, Globe said about 5 percent of abusive subscribers use 80 percent of the available broadband Internet bandwidth in the company's network.

This leaves only 20 percent of the capacity to be shared by 95 percent of the remaining users.

"Globe implemented a policy that promotes a more responsible way of using the Internet that will ensure fair and optimum usage of its broadband services across all subscribers," the company said.

The usage cap, it said, would affect only users who download data in excess of 1 gigabyte a day, or the equivalent of about 250 MP3 songs.

Telecommunications firms have been criticized for plans to put usage caps on Internet service, which consumers said were uncalled for especially with broadband speeds in the Philippines still far lower than in neighboring countries.

Consumer groups have said that companies should invest to bolster their networks instead of penalizing users.

But Globe said its new policy aimed to preserve the "quality of resources in order to provide subscribers with seamless, uninterrupted and reliable Internet connections."

The company said network bandwidth was a finite resource, making it necessary to adopt regulations that promote responsible and fair use of the Internet to prevent abuse and misuse of services from a relatively smaller group of consumers.

"This also ensures consistency and reliability of connection for use of the greater majority of broadband subscribers," Globe said.

The company claimed the new fair-use policy would also help curb copyright infringement through the Internet.

A recent study by data firm Envisional showed that close to 36 percent of torrent downloads involved pornography and another 48 percent were movies and television shows.

The study further claimed that close to 24 percent of global Internet traffic was piracy-related and nearly one-quarter of the traffic on the Internet involves the unauthorized distribution of copyrighted materials such as movies, TV shows, music and video games.

"These activities, apart from being unsecured, also utilize a significant amount of broadband network data, which prohibits other subscribers to enjoy the same quality of Internet connection," the company said.

[mangkulas03]

i am a globe broadband user. so please pardon my bitterness.

i personally think this policy has a lot of loop holes.

- globe just opened marketing doors for other networks. other networks would take advantage of globe's data cap to attract more consumers. and for sure, well at least for some, consumers will switch to other networks who don't have data caps or networks who have larger data caps (globe is 1GB). globe should increase their data cap to 2GB or 3GB. that would be more acceptable.

- globe is claiming that other networks also do data capping, but they are the only ones who are transparent about it. question 1: why are other networks not transparent about it? question 2: can globe prove that all other networks are doing it as well?

- i believe it's supposed to be "unlimited internet". please correct me if i'm wrong. so how come globe is LIMITING subscribers to only 1GB of download everyday? i heard that should you exceed 1GB of downloads (approx. 250 mp3 files), globe will immediately cut your internet service and restore it at 12:01am the next day.

- globe is putting too much attention to 'abusers' and not to improve on their services. we have personally experienced 2 major internet shut downs here in taytay since globe's main 'box' always gets tampered by criminals (they steal whatever is inside the 'box'). resulting to no internet for a month (2nd instance was 1 week). they said that we will receive rebates, but unfortunately, we did not.

- globe has other internet services that they are bragging about. i think it's named Tattoo Torque, if i'm not mistaken, and it's around 10-15Mbps. i really think that globe is "managing" their service to comply to their promises of giving faster and more efficient internet access to torque subscribers. so as not to give false hopes to consumers. who uses torque? i think it's just few percentage of users. and who gets to be on the losing end? subscribers who availed of the lower plans.

- i really think that this is a big cover up! covering up all inefficiencies of the globe internet service. NTC should really investigate on this. they might be just hiding problems in capacity, quality of service, and reliability. (http://bit.ly/eMw4Xy)


where's my frustration coming from? i download episodes of my favorite shows of approx. 1.5-2GB almost everyday.

[angelo]

in my opinion:

1 - as far as i know, these are only applicable to mobile connections.. marami kasi ang mga pilipinong "kapos" sa buhay at ito ang kaya nilang bayaran na internet connection.

2 - pareho lang ito ng texting. dati libre lang ang mag-text, one time payment lang na 220 pesos sa globe. kaso inabuso, daming pa-cute na messages tapos text to all people in the phonebook. naging mahirap ang network. so pinabayad na ang text, piso per message (or the applicable rates).

hindi ko kinakampihan ang Globe (kasi galit din ako sa kanila. nagkataon lang sila ang nagdadala ng iPhone dito sa Pinas), pero if it is for the greater majority, FAIR FOR ALL, then ok lang sa akin itong data capping. masama loob mo kasi apektado ka.
if you do not want their service, then switch. its their problem if they lose you as a subscriber, not your problem..

[pinoybrusko]

^ Globe or smart broadband pare parehas lang.

Use PLDT's DSL na lang

[angelo]

^ Globe or smart broadband pare parehas lang.

Use PLDT's DSL na lang

sa paanong paraan parehas?

sana pwede we-roam kasi yun talaga mabilis!