THE ATENEO Innovation Center (AIC), in cooperation with the Internet Society Philippines (ISOC-PH) and the Ateneo Information Technology Resource Management Office, hosted a remote participation hub for the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann) meeting in London on June 26.

The participation hub held at the USBONG/SHINE Mobile Laboratory in the PLDT-Convergent Technologies Center building allowed attendees to join the Icann meeting through video conferencing.

According to Winthrop Yu of ISOC-PH, Icann is one of several organizations that run the Internet globally. It is in charge of maintaining and administering domain names, which identify websites.

Moreover, Benjz Sevilla of AIC explained that the conference is an effort to address Internet governance in the Philippines as well as an avenue for participants to voice their opinion.

Yu also said that the hub was held in response to the current clamor for faster Internet in the Philippines, especially with recent reports that the country has one of the slowest Internet speeds in Southeast Asia.

“The contention on the Internet has been raised primarily because people have been complaining that it’s slow. [Otherwise], everybody’s pretty happy to leave it as it is. But now that you want to make it faster, it’s better to understand the Internet governance issues and frameworks both locally and globally,” said Yu.

He cited that one of the issues now is the demand to make the Internet a common carrier service to address Internet speed.

A common carrier is a service offered to the public under the control of a regulatory board.

Yu said that should the Internet be made into a common carrier, doing so will not ensure that its speed will improve. The requirements needed to put up an Internet business will also restrict the market.

Twenty-nine participants, mostly Ateneo students, joined the video conference.

Sevilla said that they will hold other remote participation hubs which are also open to students, the academe and other civilians.