NTC urged to gird for cell phone pornography

It is time to get busy preparing instead of waiting to play catch-up.

The National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) should get ready to crack down on cell phone pornography, which poses a serious challenge to both regulators and telecommunications providers in the months ahead, Catanduanes Rep. Joseph Santiago (NPC) said.

"The advance of broadband or high-speed Internet access, coupled with the coming of 3G mobile telecommunications technology, will surely open the floodgates to the cellphone delivery of pornography," Santiago, a former NTC commissoner himself, warned.

He also said pornography, a $57-billion-per-year global market, is a big driver of video-on-demand in countries with highly evolved mobile telephone and Internet services.

Before video-on-demand pornography becomes a problem in the Philippines, Santiago proposed that the NTC adopt content-rating systems for audio and video materials transmitted over cellular phones.

"Mobile telephone operators themselves may (also) initiate their own content-rating systems," Santiago added.

Third generation or 3G technology enables advanced connectivity and greater multimedia applications through mobile telephones, including real time large data transmissions, streaming video and music and extremely high-speed Internet access.

The NTC is set to award 3G frequencies to five telecommunications providers. The country’s two largest mobile telephone operators — Smart Communications Inc. and Globe Telecom Inc. — have already applied for licenses to offer 3G services.

Prior to his election to the House of Representatives and his assumption of the post of vice chairman of the chamber’s transportation and communications committee, Santiago served as chief of the NTC.

In the United States, the two largest mobile telephone operators — Cingular Wireless (with 52.3 million users) and Verizon Wireless (with 49.3 million users) — are adopting content-rating systems for audio and video materials delivered over their handsets, Santiago said.

The Philippines now has fifth largest mobile telephone subscriber base in Asia, next to China, Japan, India and South Korea, according to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development’s Information Economy report.

Of 176 countries worldwide, the Philippines has the 14th biggest mobile telephone subscriber base.

As of end 2004, the Philippines had 32.9 million mobile telephone subscribers — and industry analysts said the Philippines still has an "addressable market" of 25 million potential new mobile telephone subscribers.

The University of Asia and the Pacific earlier projected that Filipinos would spend as much as P65 billion next year on mobile telephone services.