Hello everyone,
I'm Bani Lara from ASTI. With the sponsorship of APNIC, CICT and NCC, we were able to host the local hub for IGF 2010. It was also participated in by several members of ISOC Philippines
http://www.pregi.net/preginet-to-join-the-5th-internet-governance-forum/
This year's local hosting was quite promising, since we were able to attract some of the policy makers in CICT to attend the event and listen to the discussions.
For the first day, we had a very good "debate" with some executives from our telco regulator, NTC
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Telecommunications_Commission_(Philippines)
We discussed and debated on topics such as:
a. Philippines internet penetration rate
b. Cost of access and the cost of devices used to access the internet
c. Means of access (some places in the Philippines do not have reliable electricity)
d. International standards in terms of the definition of broadband access, and if our local telcos/ISPs are adhering to those standards
e. Encourage competition in the ISP business
f. IPv6
g. The thin line between censorship and scarcity of bandwidth
h. etc
The last day was also good, since we "timed" the IGF participation to follow after the meeting of our local policy makers in terms of IPv6 direction in our country. Our country recently came up with its IPv6 policy, and we are working on a more detailed document with regards to its implementing rules and regulation.
http://www.pregi.net/palace-promotes-the-use-of-ipv6/
The remote participation facility was very helpful to developing countries such as ours by giving us the opportunity to voice out our concerns in these international meetings.
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Mabuhay from Manila, Philippines!
Manila hub is well represented by various government sectors in the Philippines, and few service providers and non-governmental organizations. We have only managed to attend the morning main sessions due to the time difference but still received good feedback from participants.
The open discussion on the first day tackles on critical internet resources such as infrastructure, allocation of budget and proper regulatory process from the government. While there has been a great interest on IPv6 and talks on how to keep the ball rolling in terms of awareness, training, and development from yesterday's discussion. The comment from today is about the issue of "openness" in the country as there have been cases where providers are forced to block some sites to minimize bandwidth consumption. Apparently, this is commonly happening in developing countries to save costs.
The participants joined sessions according to their point of interest and role in the organization so we have varied number of attendees each day. We have 16 participants on the first day, 10 on the second, and around 7 today. We are expecting a good number of technical people coming for tomorrow's main session.
For the past 2 years, Manila hub has been actively following IGF events. This year's remote participation is the most successful in terms of the number of attendees and discussions' general output. Many thanks to the great effort of our local host, Advance Science and Technology Institute (ASTI), and for the support of Asia Pacific Network Information Center (APNIC), National Computer Center(NCC), and Commission on Information and Communications Technology (CICT).
And lastly, we are happy with the good audio/visual room we use where we can clearly hear and watch the video (please see our room set-up from
the attached photo).
Warmest regards
Anna
