TELECOM ARCHIVE 13 OCT 2005

TELECOM ARCHIVE 13 OCT 2005
Cyber-services corridor needs billions of pesos
Microsoft, Yahoo to launch instant messaging connection
Telecommuting
Only banking, telecom sectors are ready to combat cyber terrorism, official says
Filipino hacker's conviction hailed
NPA bombs 11th Globe cell site
Cell phone dealers have till yearend to register
No tax exemption for PLDT-Bacolod
Globe warns subscribers against e-mail hoax
Verify genuine Microsoft products
Lawmaker, CICT propose e-budgeting project for gov't
Solon weighs policies on gov't use of open source software
Sun Cellular awards P1.2-B expansion contract to Alcatel
Landline war heats up; Globe cuts IDD rates to as low as 5¢/minute
President Arroyo lauds Microsoft donation to gov�t ICT programs
AN ORDINANCE PRESCRIBING CELL SITE APPLICATION FEE
NTC to pursue ICT projects despite return to DOTC
As Stated
50 Channel Portable Scanner
Santiago warns against cybersex operations
NTC wants to open 3G to new players
An Original Volunteer is the new SBMA Administrator
Information Society summit slated in Manila
Telco group to meet NTC on new VOIP, 3G rules
'Energy police' to enforce new conservation moves, Virtual Meetings ordered
Virtual meetings can save energy, says GMA
Telcos lose bid to bar ISPs from offering VoIP
House committees back NTC on VoIP
Battle among Internet portals seen as fight for profits
What's the buzz about Push to Talk?
Internet Shops On-Line meeting
NTC declares VoIP as value added service Signs new guidelines
MY BLOG MAIL ADDRESS
Cebu City Internet cafés monitored
RFID: What it can do for RP
Globe seeks help in cell site attacks
Telco to protect its network from unhealthy competition
Innove launches new prepaid call cards
Cellphone TV takes live hurdle
Flat-rate call, broadband propel PLDT fixed line business
Local Internet awards
Globe Telecom becomes 1st RP carrier to make 3G video call
Villar sounds alarm on Internet child pornography
NOTICE OF HEARING: ASSOCIATED BROADCASTING COMPANY
Spam on 'pump-and-dump' stock scams on the rise
Senate Bill 2041 - ACT PUNISHING THE SNATCHING OF MOBILE PHONES
Senate Bill 2042 - SIM CARD REGISTRATION
Cellular business softening
Courts exempt Smart, Piltel from local taxes
'Darknets' to cloak identities of computer file swappers
3 caught in Cebu raids for alleged violation of Access Devices Act
Now, you can purchase cellphone load online
Globe, Smart turn to short-term, unlimited text messaging
Rival telcos set sight on Subic to challenge PLDT's dominance
other IT articles
Another People’s PC project launched
PCIJ blog hacked
NTC issues rules for frequency band allocation for wireless technology
Anti-Wiretapping Law
‘Ransomware’ to bring online havoc, security experts warn
Dep’t of ICT will help improve RP image
INTERNAL RULES
NTC okays Innove‘s bid to install telephone lines nationwide
‘One number, one phone’ to rule them all, possible with broadband technology
NTC issues revised 3G draft guidelines despite opposition
NTC says RP now ready for 3G services
Tech is PLDT’s lynchpin for success in 2005, says chairman
Bill to curb cybersex filed in Congress
Anatomy of eavesdropping on mobile phone calls
Solon proposes Internet cryptography body
Brightpoint to distribute Skype products and services
TV may finally marry the PC in RP
Ignorance of security measures makes networks vulnerable
Congress proposes tougher cyber crime law
NTC requires wireless firms to report on network security
NTC seeks telcos' help in wiretapping probe
Broadband bandwagon
NTC is under attack anew
GV BROADCASTING
BETA BROADCASTING
Subic Broadcasting Corp.
RP losing software engineers, digital animators to India, Singapore
Digitel Earmarks $200M For Mobile Op In 2006
Ex-NTC chief wants NTC abolished following ruling
World Summit on the Information Society
Biggest telecom show at WTC
Text2Teach: Making SMS relevant in education
Amateur License
Consumer group, solons, telcos oppose SIM registration
SIM card user registration begins in Bankok
Checking on home while away
Laws vs computer games a disservice--Internet café chain
Congress schedules hearings on cybercrime bills next week
US firm expands ‘hosted’ call center business in RP
DOST goes into Web-based GIS, mature technology portal
US Census Bureau halts Internet 'phishing' scam
Intel helps fingers type faster
Microsoft Phils. ups CSR a level higher
ITU chief calls for equitable information sharing
Brain cancer linked to mobile phone use in rural areas: study
Phone shops told to register
Combining the perks of a mobile, Internet-ready PC
NBI urges passing of anti-cybersex laws
Congressmen quiz telcos on impact of VoIP deregulation
Mass migration to VoIP expected within a decade
Telco lawyers raise howl over new draft rules on VoIP
Executive Order No. 84-A
Cybercrime costs billions but how to report it?
PLDT raises constitutional issues with NTC VoIP draft rules
Lawmaker wants tougher penalties for purveyors of cybersex
Relentless rise of the mobile phone rings changes for world’s poor
Hackers are increasingly exploiting blogs
Internet safety campaign launched to protect children
Text scams thrive on cell phones’ popularity
PROPOSED INTEGRATED TELECOMMUNICATIONS NETWORK
We'll regulate, not engage in, mobile phone gambling—Pagcor
Roxas gives NTC a pat on the back for new VoIP draft rule
Expect more pro-active regulatory policies--NTC officials
NTC to pilot-test online public hearings
BIR charges Telecom company with tax evasion
NTC cracks down on text spammers
VoIP a value-added service
New survey shows HK, India and RP businessmen spend most time on e-mail
7th Telecom Board Meeting
Promo text messages an invasion of privacy
PLDT might make cheap call promo permanent
NTC pushes 6-second billing scheme for mobile phones
NTC pins hope on Congress for new billing rules on calls
PLDT, Globe tussle over call scheme
6th Telecom Board Meeting
NTC issues guidelines on mobile spam
Arroyo approves P1-billion e-Government fund
NTC BLOCKED CELLPHONES
Telecoms can expect Senate grilling over prepaid cards
Texting to cost more with Senate VAT bill
Smart, PILTEL launch own price-cut promo
Villar questions legality of forfeiting cell-card values
Telecom Towers in Mt. Cabalan
Safety measures to bar minors from playing text games
PLDT acknowledges VoIP as its biggest threat in 2005
NTC must encourage competition
Report: Cell Phone Use While Driving Up
NTC reassesses Piltel’s fees
Chikka.com not operating illegally, says NTC official
CICT chief answers Senator Roxas’s criticism
CICT expects a new ‘.ph’ administrator before year’s end
SIM CARD registration law pushed
NBI nets P5M worth of computers in anti-piracy raid
FBI issues warning about computer virus
Munti residents protest cell site
Philippines IT to grow by one-third
5th Telecom Board Meeting
CALL CENTER BOOM
Gov’t to bar ISPs with no pornography blocking
Alumni.NET SMS Message
NTC Director meets the Board
Gov't moves to stop cellphone-based fraud
SP Adopted TELECOM Board Reso #2
NTC stops chikka.com mobile services
Board updated by MIS Head
NTC to put a stop text spam soon
Subic Telecom ups capacity due to strong Net demand
MOBILE PHONE WAR
ZERO NDD
Bill filed to protect SIM card holders from syndicates
AGENDA 4th Telecom Board Meeting
CITY HALL TELEPHONE DIRECTORY
SMS TEXT TO TELECOM WEBLOG
SAVERS INSPECTION
Globe nets P11.3 B in 2004, up 9.7%
Text scam nets P5M
MINUTES of 3rd Telecom Board Meeting
RESOLUTION NUMBER 03, SERIES OF 2005
RESOLUTION NUMBER 02, SERIES OF 2005
RESOLUTION NUMBER 01, SERIES OF 2005
All internet cafes probed
NTC appends rules on phone sales, repair
ONE PROVINCE ONE RATE HEARING
MINUTES of 2nd Telecom Board Meeting
NTC orders cable operators to close chat rooms
Telecom Board Members Sworn-in
2nd Meeting AGENDA 17 Jan 2005
ONE PROVINCE ONE RATE
Implementing Rules of Telecom Act (RA 7925)
TELECOMMUNICATIONS ACT (RA 7925)
Dec 20, 2004 MINUTES OF MEETING
1st Meeting AGENDA 20 Dec 2004
Joint Pole MOA GLOBE
Executice Order No. 84
AN ORDINANCE CREATING TELECOM & IT BOARD
Reversal of RPT Exemption Granted to Globe Tel
Piltel is exempted from franchise tax
MOA - CONTRACT PILTEL
Joint Pole MOA BAYANTEL
Joint Pole MOA PT&T
PLDT VS DAVAO case
SBMA Telecom Dept Circular 2-21-01

Cyber-services corridor needs billions of pesos

The Philippines needs hundreds of billion of pesos to establish a cyber-services corridor in the next five years to decentralize development and create jobs outside Metro Manila, an official of the Commission on Information Communications and Technology (CICT).

On the sideline of the 31st Philippine Business Conference, Damian Domingo O. Mapa of the Strategic Business Dev’t Group of the Commission on Information and Technology said the country needs at least P210 billion to establish a cyber-services corridor.

Putting up an information communications technology-related company requires an investment of P5 million to P50 million.

Mapa said the Philippine cyber-service corridor (PCC) is a corridor that stretches 600 miles from Baguio in Luzon to Zamboanga in Mindanao.

He said the envisioned PCC would be home to thousands of cyber-service professionals who speak English, Japanese, Spanish, Chinese or Arabic, and who also provides services such as software development, business process outsourcing, customer care/contact, digital animation and visualization, medical transcription, engineering and design.

"It’s a five year program . . . this year alone, we are already looking at 14 cities to be part of the corridor or every year maybe we will add another 5 or 10. By 2010 maybe we have more than 50 cities in the corridor," Mapa said.

Potential revenues from ICT-related businesses could reach $26 billion by 2010.

From January to June this year the ICT sector generated 41,000 jobs. By 2010 total demand for ICT workers is expected to grow to about a million from 120,000 last year.

By 2010 the industry will absorb 230,000 new workers—more than 40 percent of the new entries into the workforce.

"This is a major demographic shift which will impact on other industries like banking, insurance, etcetera," the CICT said, adding that new job opportunities will encourage college students to shift to courses catering to this demand.

Darwin G. Amojelar

Microsoft, Yahoo to launch instant messaging connection

NEW YORK -- Yahoo and Microsoft said Wednesday they signed an interoperability agreement that will allow people who use their respective consumer instant messaging services to interact with each other.
The companies expect to launch the free interconnectivity services in the second quarter of 2006.

Yahoo and Microsoft estimate they will have a high percentage of the 275 million people who use IM services worldwide.

"Yahoo and Microsoft share a commitment to providing the highest-quality experience possible for consumers, and today's groundbreaking announcement underscores our desire to provide consumer interoperability between our thriving IM communities," said Terry Semel, chief executive at Yahoo.

"This is truly a turning point for the IM industry, and we believe our agreement with Microsoft will help usher in a new era of IP (Internet protocol) communications."

The companies have been speaking for some time, but talks became "earnest" over the last year, Dan Rosensweig, Yahoo's chief operating officer, said in a conference call Wednesday.

MSN and Yahoo said that outside the United States, the combined user base will be larger than that of Time Warner Inc.'s AOL, which pioneered and dominates the instant-messaging market.

"If you leave the boundaries of the US, it's MSN and Yahoo. ... You don't find a whole lot of AOL," said Blake Irving, corporate vice president of MSN.

Asked why MSN and Yahoo are not partnering with America Online, or whether they had been in discussions for a three-way interoperable service, Rosensweig said that it was difficult enough to bring two IM communities together, much less three.

As to whether MSN and Yahoo would agree to interoperate with Google Talk, Rosensweig suggested that the founders of Google, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, use the upcoming service from Yahoo and MSN.

"Larry and Sergey can both download and get interoperability," said Rosensweig.

For its part, Google said it is open to interoperability as well.

"Google believes in user choice which is why we developed Google Talk using open standards," said Google spokeswoman Eileen Rodriguez.

"We made a commitment to open interoperabililty and continue to encourage service providers to fully open up their networks. We welcome all efforts to drive openness among communications services, and interoperability is a step in the right direction."

Yahoo and MSN combined would have seen 46 million users on their services in August, according to comScore Networks. That number might be inflated, however, because of an overlap in user base. AOL Instant Message saw 49 million users in the month of August while ICQ, owned by Time Warner, had 1.6 million users.

Telecommuting

BEYOND THE BUZZWORDS
By Reylito A.H. Elbo
Telecommuting: How do you solve a traffic problem?



DO people in other coun tries telecommute more than we Filipinos? It appears that way. Look at our traffic problems. But before you look at the way of MMDA Chair Bayani Fernando, let me tell you this.

Maybe telecommuting, by way of combining flexiplace, flextime and electronic communication, is one approach that Fernando should start working with the business sector.

That way, he could make the three and one-half of his opponent mayors irrelevant in his new initiative as he could deal only with progressive-minded people like those that you can find in business.

With telecommuting, which is defined as transferring work from the office to the workers’ home or at remote work center (say from the American soil to local call centers), could minimize the number of workers during rush hours—well at least in the US and elsewhere.

And probably, that explains why our traffic problem remains unabated up to this day. That’s why I’m in my glum look when I’m stuck in a traffic jam as I sympathize with people on my sides—public-utility vehicles and private cars who look so bitter as if they’re going to a parents’ club meeting of the College Assurance Plan.

Granted that telecommuting would affect only a small percentage of rush hour packers, but this is enough to see more smiles on the street, at least when the pickpockets, hold-uppers, and mashers are not around. Of course, it’s possible they’ve graduated to become jeepney or pedicab drivers.

If telecommuting has become effective, then you can see more smiles on the street—the kind that you could see in a hospital basement. Of course, we’d like to smile to show openness and warmth as a person with happy disposition, because we’ve secured jobs at least to show others that we’d really like to be a part of the mad rush hour.

Now seriously, if we Filipino managers continue to have a blind eye about telecommuting, may be it’s just that we’re too old-fashioned and cannot get enough of our traditional hold and control of our workers to ensure their productivity.

But wait, how do you define labor productivity? I should say it’s like pornography. It’s difficult to define it, but we know it when we see it.

Thus, many of the reported gains in telecommuting are purely anecdotal and based on subjective and limited assessments. Unless we try it like a bold lion, like what I’m doing—giving importance to my own body clock, personal cycles of energy and fatigue which makes me productive with the many hats I’m wearing.

I’ll tell you—telecom­muting works wonder for me as a highly mobile management consultant. It increases my job satisfaction. I do my best when I work late at night. That’s how my Internet connection work to the best of its ability as I battle with my son’s Ragnarok which helps me concentrate on my consulting assignments.

Seriously, avoiding the stress of battling the daily traffic grind and the overlap with the standard workday of my clients was adequate to allow coordination at daytime and be my daughter’s driver to school at the same time.

Telecommuting, really is what we need in this world where traffic jams look unsolved.


. . .

Rey Elbo is a management consultant specializing on human resources and total quality management as a fused specialty. Feedback may be sent to SMS to 0915-406-3039 and send an e-mail to reyelbo@pworld.net.ph.

Only banking, telecom sectors are ready to combat cyber terrorism, official says

CEBU CITY — Of the 12 potentially vulnerable sectors, only the banking and the telecommunications sectors are prepared to combat cyber terrorism attacks, said Commissioner Angelo Timoteo Diaz de Rivera of the Commission on Information and Communications Technology (CICT).


Rivera, who spoke at the 2nd ASEAN regional forum-seminar on cyber terrorism, said the banking and the telecommunications sectors have been adopting communications and technology ever since, and "that is why these are very much equipped and versed on Information and Communications Technology".

The 12 critical structures that are vulnerable to cyber terrorism attacks and need to be protected are the banking and finance, telecommunications, health and health care, transportation, religious places of worship, infrastructures, government services, education centers, power and energy generation and distribution, retail trend, manufacturing, and agriculture and food.

However, Rivera said that so much more is needed to be done by other sectors to combat cyber terrorism.

He said there is a need to increase the level of awareness among the structures on the matter and the need to put in place additional security policies including the need to look at medicated and educational ways to address the problem.

He said there is also a need to establish the computer security incident response team, which is only established in the Philippine National Police-now used to capture evidences in cyber crimes.

During the 3-day forum, participants recommended the creation of directory of contact points on key cyber security areas which they hope to complete this month, the establishment of an ASEAN Regional Forum wide Network of computer emergency response teams, collaboration of digital forensics and the mutual and legal assistance in prosecuting cyber terrorist and hackers.

The three-day seminar aims to build and nurture a level of trust and confidence that will enable continued information sharing and related communications long after the seminar is over. The ARF network on the other hand, can be used as an important conduit for the flow of information that can be used in our daily flight against terror and actual cyber-terrorism-induced crisis situations. (Mars Mosqueda Jr. MB)