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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.