It's easy for us to think that the era of internet by the hour is behind us, but in some parts of the world it's the only resource users have to combat the lack of connectivity. In fact, in the most hidden areas of the metro Manila area there are pisonets, equivalent to cyber cafes with a unique characteristic: Internet access is coin-operated, in five-minute blocks…
At first, the key was waiting for the flat rate schedule so as not to overheat the phone. With the arrival of broadband, cyber cafes and phone shops exploded, giving rise to internet by the hour… and to fights among children over the best working computer. Today we have mobile devices and free WiFi, but in some regions of the globe, connectivity is still in debt.
A good example is the metro Manila area. The duopoly of providers Globe Telecom and PLDT has created a constant anti-competitive situation, resulting in an artificially bad and expensive internet. The 60 percent of the population living in poorer neighborhoods has no access to a computer or a smartphone, and their essential resource to connect is the pisonet, a Filipino equivalent to the cyber cafe with the peculiarity that their computers work with coins, almost like public phones.
Pisonets: One peso, five minutes of internet
Pisonet is a compression of ‘pisong internet’ or pesos of internet. Currently, the Philippine peso trades at two cents of the US dollar, and guarantees users just five minutes of connectivity. Even with the restrictions associated with COVID-19, a weak legal situation (that depends on the whims of local officials) and a greater demand for digital services, pisonets have not stopped growing.
Those five minutes per coin may seem very little on the surface, but pisonets reflect one of the main forms of consumption in the Philippines, known as tingi: Buy little by little, in small payments, according to need. A standard internet plan can cost up to 1,300 pesos per month (just over 25 dollars), a prohibitive sum for most.
Beyond the service they provide, the situation of pisonets is complex. If we set aside the constant threats of closure by authorities, the fact is that they depend on the continuity of the Globe-PLDT duopoly, and these companies have begun to slowly imitate the model, with fractional data packages for smartphones. For now, pisonets are irreplaceable, but even their owners recognize that the business will not last forever…
Source: Rest of World
