The high-speed Internet or also known as Broadband has become synonym to our daily life. Be it at office or at home, broadband has allow us to explore the virtual world, from surfing the websites with lot of contents, sharing desktop via remote control assistance software or making an oversea calls via VOIP technology, something that is impossible to do during the dial-up days.

Broadband technologies have the potential to bring about unprecendented benefits to consumers and to a nation economy. If the government adopts the right policy framework, emphasizing competition and limited regulation, the growth of broadband technologies will significantly strengthen the democracy and every individual’s economy empowerment of the country.

However, broadband services are at risk or being controlled by gatekeepers who have the ability to skew the marketplace against the interets of consumers. As a result of recent mergers in telecommunications industries, broadband provision is increasingly domunated by a duopoly that is under no obligation to ensure that their networks are open and accessible to all users and applications. Certain countries countries with outdated government spectrum policies have placed artificial limits on broadband deployment. One of the example is the U.S. which ranks only 16th in the world in broadband panetration.

These issues arise because broadband are operating in a policy restriction. For instance, there is no clear plan to make it affordable, which will attract more new subscribers. Restriction like this creates uncertainty and depresses the broadband services market.

A gorvernment should enact a clear set of principles for broadband services to ensure these networks are widely deployed and more importantly affordable and accessible to consumers from all walks of life. Unhealthy practice in telecommunication market such as a monopoly in the market should be avoided to ensure healty market competition. With more and more ISPs, consumer will benefits the competition among the service providers and at the same time creates a better good customer service to gain customer loyalty.