History of Internet in Philippines 1993: E-Mail Company The E-Mail Company launches EMC Online (emc.ph), the first online content service in the Philippines which allows its subscribers to forge a strong and dynamic online community via online chat and forums. This online service originated in the Macintosh platform using the First Class software and was originally run separate from the Internet. Along with the forums system that emerged later on, it promoted a self-contained community where everyone communicates on the same system. 1994: First Live Internet connection Setting up the first live internet connection was a cooperative effort of different groups. Dr. Torres approached the Manila Electric Company (Meralco), and the Philippine National bank, since thy were well-funded entitles. Both declined to fund the project. DOST Secretary Ricardo Gloria heeded Dr. Torres´ proposal for the Philippine to connect to the Internet He included it in the Science and Technology Agenda for National Development. (STAND). Dr. Rodolfo Villarica of the Industrial Philnet was formed. Dr. William Padolina became DOS secretor and oversaw the project. Philnet started out with an email connection for "Phase I", performed through a dialup UUCP (Unix to Unix Copy Protocol) connection made between the Ateneo de Manila University and the Victoria University of Technology in Australia. De La Salle University and UP Diliman joined the dialup network to receive international e-mail through Ateneo gateway. This connection used UCCP to bcd up mail to and from the Internet from the participating institutions. The DOST made a grant of Php 12.45 million to the IRF to implement Philnet "Phase II", for a direct, liv connection to the Internet. The DOST contracted Computer Systems Network Corporation (ComNet), a networking equipment vendor to implement the network linking the various and universities and organizations Arnie de Rosario then chair of the Ateneo Computer Science Department, informed the chair of ComNet, the late Dr. Willy Gan about the project. Dr. Gan drew up the PHnet network design and convinced PLDT to deliver the facilities in time for the March 29, 1994 launch in Cebu. This was to coincide with the E-mail Conference headed by Dr. John Brule, a fried of Dr. Villarica and a visiting professor at the University of San Carlos. Benjamin "Benjie" Tan headed the technical part of the project. Later, Philnet is renamed to PHnet to avoid naming conflict with another group, a "philosophers´network" 1995: Ayala Corporation Companies connecting to the Internet became aware of their corporate image. Ayala Corporation - which would rather be a dotcom player - started its website. Even while top companies like Ayala Corporation (globe.ph/~isd/ac_home.htm) got press coverage went online, countless smaller companies have also built an online presence. Many of these started out as extensions of the personal page built by company staff members who were the first to go online among their peers. June 1996: The Philippine Internet Service Organization (PISO) The Philippine Internet Service Organization (PISO) was formed with Albert Velasco of (Mailstation Net) as the first president. This was the fruit of discussions among ISP officers since late 1995. The ph-isp mailing list served as the online forum for these initial discussions. On August 20, the officers and trustees were inducted in Malacañang by President Fidel V. Ramos. 1996: ISP Sky Internet ISP Sky Internet (skyinet.net/) put up an IRC chat room called "The Lounge" which became popular among the local community. The cCyberspace Live ISP/online service established "eForums", the first local web-based forum and discussion system. This was a precursor to the web-based bulletin boards that became popular in the late 90´s. 1997: Internet Commerce Expo Manila WS Expositions organized the Internet Commerce Expo Manila 1997 (ICE Manila 97) at the Shangri-La Hotel Makati City. This event introduced the WS Group to Fiesta Online, known for Yehey The WS Expositions Group organizes the Internet Commerce Expo in September 1997. This shows that Internet commerce deserves its own events. The ATM network Bancnet operates an ISP for its member banks. This made use of the existing connections between the Bancnet system and its members. 1998: Asia Pacific Regional Internet Conference on Operating Technology Local ISP´s IPhil Communications, Mindgate Systems and Worldtel Philippines host the third APRICOT (Asia Pacific Regional Internet Conference on Operating Technology). This technical conference was held at the Makati Shangri-La Hotel. Internet Engineering experts from all over the world came to hold technical sessions and tutorials. This conference has been held every year since 1996, and is hosted by a city in the Asia-Pacific region. The event is also an important face-to-face social gathering for industry professionals. 1998: San Miguel Draft Beer San Miguel Draft Beer goes online. This is the first full e-commerce site operating from the Philippines. The proponents were World Port (an Internet services consulting firm), IBM, San Miguel Coporation, nd Equitable Card Network; with the support of Intelligent Wave Philippines, and Infocom Technologies Incorporated; working with the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and the E-Commerce Promotion Council of the Philippines (ECPC). This showed that the Philippines is capable of facilitating online commerce. 1999: Auction Auction sites flourish, following the trend in the US, with popular services such as eBay. These include eAuctions.ph, which closed and reopened as Avalon.ph; PinoyAuctions, which was acquired by ABS-CBN and merged with PinoyCentral; and Bidshot, which offers SMS-based bidding. These make use of a C2C (Consumer to Consumer) model where the buyers and sellers transact directly and the website merely facilitates the meeting of the two. E-store also began its e-commerce store operations. 1999: PinoyExchange PinoyExchange forum started operations. It became one of the largest online communities in terms of message volume, users and mind share. iAyala, the Internet venture arm of Ayala Corporation, made an investment in 2000. Several other forums followed. It is still running to dae, surviving slowdowns and a system crash. 2000: B2B Business Exchanges B2B Business Exchanges started operating, to offer services for corporate buyers and sellers. These include Bayantrade, formed by a consortium of large companies; SourcePilipinas, from the Yapster group; B2B Price Now; and PhilBX (Philippine Internet Business Exchange) from the SSI group. These systems allow companies to achieve savings and increase efficiency by bidding and procuring online. Since the companies involved have existing relationships, this avoids the B2C (Business to Consumer) problem of Philippine e-commerce where payment systems are not well developed. 2000: The E-Commerce Law (Republic Act 8792) The E-Commerce Law - Republic Act 8792, was signed into law on june 14, 2000. It has a scope much wider than the "e-commerce" in its name, as it also covers digital signatures and "hacking" activities. 2001: PhilDAC Various developments heated up the issue over the PH domain. The group opposed the dotPH and Joel Disini organized PhilDAC (Philippine Domain Authority Convenors). dotPH president Jose Emmanuel Disini sues Fernando Contreras, Jr., president of PISO (Philippine Internet Service Organization) and ISP Inter.net. Prosperity is found guilty of selling and distributing securities user an illegal pyramid scheme. It was selling expensive websites. During this time, Multi-level Marketing (MLM) schemes became popular on the Internet. Yahoo Computer Services, a local company, loses yahoo.ph to Yahoo! Inc. This is the first time a Philippine company enters into a domain dispute with a foreign corporation and a well-known Internet brand. This shows that the scope of the well-known Internet names is global, and Internet companies are concerned about misuse of their name even for local domains. Blogs and online journals became common. These are text-oriented sites that reflect the daily opinions or chronicles of their publishers. They add fresh content from a a personal point of view, as opposed to the corporate view espoused by mainstream websites. Blogs allow bits and pieces of information from the Philippines make their way to Filipino readers abroad. Online games (not gambling) become available with local servers, Mindgate offers pinoybattle.net, which provide action and shooting-oriented games. Surf Shop operates gamena, offering boards and card games. 2003: Online Fraud Online merchants outside the counter block transactions originating from the Philippines and some other countries. This measure is intended to prevent credit card fraud by blocking customers en masse, instead of addressing fraud on a case-to-case basis. One merchant with this policy is the domain registrar GoDaddy, which now blocks IP connections from the Philippines. Their blocking strategy affected local domain owners who used them to register domains. The Philippines is known among merchants to ave high incidence of online fraud. PLDT offers the Cyber Madness promo. It partners with dealers to offer computers on an installment basis when tied up with a dial up or DSL broadband subscription. This expands their consumer base beyond customers who already have PC´s, and aim to improve the low domestic PC penetration which hurts Internet expansion. To this date low credit penetration due to low income is a barrier to e-commerce adaptation. Traditionally, Internet commerce systems ave been dependent on credit cards. Fraud concerns also stop people from using their cards on local sites. 2004: PLDT vs. PLDT The dispute over PLDT between the Philipine Long Distance Telephone Company (PLDT) and Gerry Kaimo peaked on January 29, 2004. A judge of the Quezon City Regional Trial Court denied the request by PLDT for a preliminary injunction. PLDT accused Kaimo of infringing on the intellectual property of the trade name and "engaging in unfair competition for using the trade name." This is not yet the end of the story, which started on in September 1999 when PLDT filed a 1.35 million peso lawsuit against Kaimo. Kaimo expected PLDT would appeal the case to higher courts, while preparing his own 50-million peso countersuit against PLDT.
Posted on: Wed, 07 Aug 2013 14:15:51 +0000